


You and Sugar Plums

by canolacrush



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Author's Personal Quest to Teach You Stuff About Random Things, BAMF John Watson, Christmas, Colossal Misunderstandings, Crack, Drama & Romance, Fairy Tale Elements, Father Christmas - Freeform, First Time, Fluff, Ghost Story Elements, Gift Giving, Holidays, Hurt/Comfort, I Don't Even Know, Kissing, M/M, Magic, Mistletoe, Mythology - Freeform, New Years, North Pole, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Polyglot Sherlock, Pre-Reichenbach, SUDDEN DARK PHILOSOPHICAL DEBATES, Slow Build, Whimsy, more time in Wyoming than you would expect, somewhat lax police procedure, the tiniest and briefest of case fics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:55:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 144,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/canolacrush/pseuds/canolacrush
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sherlock reluctantly agrees to be this year's Father Christmas, John accidentally agrees to help, and both of them discover that there's a lot more involved in this Christmas thing than they ever imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Argument and an Obligation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snogandagrope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snogandagrope/gifts).



> Endless gratitude to my dear beta Shaindy, for helping me throw wet sponges at this fic until it had a consistent tone, pointing out typos and other important little inconsistencies, and for being an enthusiastically terrific sport. :D
> 
> Dedicated to snogandagrope, for her love of Johnlock Christmas fic, and for selflessly allowing one of my other fics to reach the coveted 100 kudos mark (even though I didn't ask her to). Snog, I have a feeling this fic (at least Part 1) may not be exactly what you were expecting, but hey, I hope you enjoy it anyways (though you're by no means obligated to--DON'T FEEL OBLIGATED TO, DARN IT).
> 
> Quick note about the posting schedule: My plan is to post in "parts" (there are 5 parts in total); the general rule is that for each new "part," I post a new chapter a week (I usually average 5-6 chapters per "part"), then there is a hiatus period as I write and edit the next part, then the cycle begins anew. As of now (24 November 2016), we're continuing through Part 4.

Part I: St. Nicholas Day 

Ch 1: An Argument and an Obligation

 

John came home carrying eggnog, sherry, and a new box fairy lights because Sherlock had sacrificed last year’s to some sort of experiment, and he was greeted by the sounds of protest booming from upstairs.  Considering that Sherlock never bellowed “ _No!_ ” like that at anyone besides Mycroft, it was pretty safe for John to assume who was visiting.

As he shuffled into the kitchen to put away the nog and sherry, John glanced into the living area to spot the back of Mycroft’s head in John’s armchair.  Sherlock was pacing like a trapped leopard.  Neither of them seemed to especially care that John had come home.

“Mycroft, this is _ludicrous_.  I’m not going to do _your_ job!  That’s why it is _your_ job and not _mine_!”

Mycroft sighed.  “Sherlock, I would not be asking you to fill in for this year unless I had no other choice.  There’s a set of elections I absolutely _must_ monitor or else the consequences could be dire.”

Sherlock snorted.  “Not my problem.  The answer is no.  Leave.  Have a Merry Christmas,” he said, adding a sneer at the end.

Mycroft sighed again and looked over his shoulder at John.  “Good afternoon, John,” he said.

John offered a nod and said, simply, “Mycroft.”  He hovered in the threshold between the kitchen and living area, not entirely sure if this was something he should walk into.  However, when both the brothers Holmes failed to say or do anything to continue the discussion, John asked, “So what’s this all about then?”

“No,” Sherlock barked.  “Don’t ask.  If you ask, he’ll trick you into tricking me into doing it.”

Mycroft answered anyway, “It pertains to a certain…family business of ours.  One that I’m usually able to manage on my own, but this year I find I cannot fulfil that specific responsibility.”  He nodded towards Sherlock, who was still pacing and snarling.  “As the second-born son, The Obligation would then fall to Sherlock.”

“And I _refuse_ , so that settles the matter.  Find someone else,” Sherlock snapped, sitting down abruptly in his leather chair.

“ _Dear_ Brother,” said Mycroft, in a politely threatening manner, “you owe me at the very least five favours, two of which are quite substantial, as I’m sure you recall.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“If you cover The Obligation this year, I will consider those favours repaid in full.”

Sherlock was staring at nothing in particular, failing to react entirely, which generally meant Mycroft had been dismissed.  Mycroft did not move.

John turned to Mycroft and said, “Well, can’t you actually get someone else to do it, then?  Or is it _that_ personal?”

Sherlock hissed “ _No_ ” at him, presumably for continuing to ask questions.

Mycroft answered, “I’m afraid another replacement is not an option.  The Obligation is rather stubbornly patrilineal.  Since our father passed six years ago, it falls to either Sherlock or me now, until such time that we ourselves pass on.  Then it will presumably transfer to one of the cousins, unless one of us should produce male issue—”  He cleared his throat delicately.  “—which seems highly unlikely.”

“You can’t get one of the cousins to do it _now_ , then?” John said.

“ _Shut up, John_.”

John sent a brief glare at Sherlock, who was positively seething.  “I’m trying to get you out of doing it, you clot.”

“No you’re not, you’re making it _worse!_ ”

“Not unless Sherlock and I choose to end our suffering quite abruptly,” Mycroft said, answering John’s question with a small smile.

“ _Don’t tempt me_ ,” Sherlock growled, his gaze flicking to the fire poker.

“All right, that’s enough, girls,” John intervened, physically stepping between them.  “It’s not close enough to Christmas to start the dramatics yet.”

Sherlock groaned and flung himself out of his chair, retreating to the window and taking on a brooding air, refusing to look at anyone.

Mycroft cleared his throat and said, “It _is_ rather the timing that is of utmost importance.  If Sherlock doesn’t agree to fulfil The Obligation before December 5 th, there will be no one.  _No one_ , Sherlock.”

John checked his watch.  “Today’s the fourth.”

Mycroft cast a hard look at Sherlock’s back.  “ _Really_ , Sherlock, you’d be that selfish?  Think of how disappointed Mummy will be.  Besides, it could count as the one good deed you’ll do this year—it might spare you a visit from three certain persons when the time comes.”

At that, Sherlock seemed to tense, and after a long minute, he said, coldly, “No good deed goes unpunished.  It is _not_ my problem, Mycroft.  Leave.”

John deduced from the context of their conversation that it must be some sort of yearly visit to their mysterious, spoken-of-but-never-seen mother.  Perhaps it was her birthday on the 5th?  But then why did the errand have to follow patrilineal lines?  Maybe it was renewing a will of some kind with solicitors, or following a yearly ritual for their father’s last wishes or something?

Mycroft examined John carefully for a moment before he added, “You might bring John to assist you.  It would likely make the work more...manageable.”

“I don’t mind helping,” John offered.  “I’m not half-bad at paperwork, if there’s any of that involved.”  Considering that Harry had been utterly useless when their parents had died, John had since developed a fairly good system for how to handle things with solicitors that Sherlock might not have the patience for.

Sherlock sighed loudly and paced the floor some more.  John could almost see the dark cloud hovering over his head.

Mycroft seemed to hesitate, his brow wrinkling delicately, before he said quietly, “I would not ask it of you, Sherlock, unless I truly had no other option.  And I would not ask if I did not believe you were capable of it.”

Sherlock stopped by the mantle, still refusing to look directly at anyone, and drummed his fingers agitatedly on the shelf.  A moment later, he muttered a hostile, yet somehow defeated, “ _Fine._ ”

Mycroft smiled without warmth, and John was sure he imagined it but it almost looked like there was a hint of sympathy in his eyes.  “How good-spirited of you.  We shall consider those five favours duly repaid.”  He stood up, fished into an inner pocket of his jacket, and pulled out a small cloth bag tied with string.  He placed the bag on a coffee table.  “Well then, my best wishes on your success.  Sherlock.  John.  Have a Merry Christmas,” he said, and on the last word stuck out his hand for John to shake.

John shook it automatically, mumbling a “Merry Christmas” in return as Mycroft retreated down the stairs before Sherlock could change his mind.

John turned to Sherlock, who was staring blankly into the mirror.  “So what did I just agree to help with?”

Sherlock turned sharply and pulled out his phone from his trouser pocket, hitting a number on speed-dial.  He stalked past John and said, “Lestrade.  I’ll be on holiday until January 6.  Don’t bother calling” and hung up.

“Wait, that long?” John said, turning to follow Sherlock, who had gone into his bedroom and started stuffing clothing haphazardly into a duffel bag.  “What could possibly take that long?!”

Sherlock levelled him with a solid glare.  “The most thankless job in the world, John.  I’m being Father Christmas this year.”  He shovelled more socks into the bag.

John barked out a sharp laugh.  “Oh god, _you?_   Sherlock, you’d be the _worst_  Father Christmas in existence!”  He chuckled, grinning widely.  “God, I can just imagine the pictures.”

Sherlock paused.  “You misunderstand, John,” he said darkly.  “Not a department store Father Christmas.  The real one.”

John’s chuckling died down.  “What do you mean?”

Sherlock threw up his hands.  “What I _said_ , John, the real one!”  Grumbling, he fetched a dozen shirts and trousers from his wardrobe and threw them in the direction of the bag.

“Come on,” John said, grin returning.  “You’re having me on.  There’s no such thing as a real Father Christmas.  Everyone knows that.”

“For god’s sakes, why do I bother?” Sherlock muttered under his breath.  He waved a hand impatiently at John as he zipped up the bag.  “Well, what are you waiting for?  You’ve agreed to help.  Pack for a few weeks at least.  Warmly.”

John paused, waiting for the candid camera crew to pop out.  When they didn’t, he said, “You’re serious.”

“I’m never anything but serious, John,” Sherlock stated, which John could think of a few arguments disproving that very statement, but at that moment, Sherlock looked on the verge of destroying something—or someone.

“...You _can’t_ be serious,” John said, because really.  Really, no.  “Even if Father Christmas _were_ real, you’d be the _last_ person to be him.  Same goes for Mycroft, for that matter.”

At that, Sherlock raised a single, sardonic eyebrow.  “Oh, I assure you, Mycroft’s well adapted to the role.”  He smirked briefly at John’s disbelieving expression and intoned, “ _He sees you when you’re sleeping; he knows when you’re awake_.”

A sudden, inexplicable chill pierced John down to the bone.  “...No,” he said at last.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and pushed John out of his room, towards the stairs.  “Fine, choose not to believe me for now.  Just _pack._   I’ll inform Mrs. Hudson.  _Mrs. Hudson!_ ” he bellowed, thundering down the stairs.

John paused for another few seconds more, then finally decided to ascend to his room and pack.  Whatever lark Sherlock was having on, it sounded like it would take a while.  He’d barely managed to pack a few trousers and four jumpers when Sherlock burst into the room.

“Are you done?” Sherlock snapped.

“No, I’ve just started.”

“Well, hurry up,” Sherlock said, taking it upon himself to pull out the entirety of John’s sock drawer and dump half of it into John’s travel bag before dropping the remainder on the floor.

“ _Sherlock_ , I think I can be trusted to pack my own bag,” John said, attempting to swat him away.

Sherlock fished out John’s deodorant and toothbrush from a pocket of his Belstaff.  “You nearly forgot these.”

“I didn’t _forget_ them, I just hadn’t gotten to them yet!” John snapped, swiping them out of Sherlock’s gloved hand.  “Jesus Christ, it’s not a bloody _race_ , Sherlock!”

Sherlock huffed.  “We have a frankly _incomprehensible_ number of things to do in a _very_ short amount of time, John, so I’d appreciate it if you _hurried_.”  He waved imperiously at him and whirled away.  “I’ll be in the sitting room when you’re ready.”

John rolled his eyes and continued packing, though he did try to hurry a little, if only to prevent another Sherlockian intrusion from happening.  When he considered himself packed, he lugged the bag downstairs to find Sherlock practically vibrating with impatience, his single duffel bag slugged over one shoulder.  John set down his bag, pulled on his warmest coat and gloves, and picked the bag back up.

“Right, so where are we going?” John asked.

“You’re finally ready, then?”

“Yes.”

“Good,” Sherlock said, picking up the small bag Mycroft had left on the table and tossing it into the fireplace.  All at once, the blaze roared up, creating a huge wall of fire.

“ _Jesus Christ_ ,” John gasped, instinctively reaching forward to pull Sherlock back.

Instead, Sherlock grabbed his arm and ran straight into the inferno, dragging John with a startled yelp through it.

There was a sudden heat, but then it stopped, and John collided into Sherlock’s back.  He opened his tightly-shut eyes.

“Oh my god,” he whispered, awestruck.


	2. Mummy and Mistletoe

They were standing in an immense, wood-burnished room, with an enormous stone fireplace at their backs and the smell of baking in the air.  Tables upon tables of...people...on one side of the room had been making chocolates and candies and biscuits and pastries and sweets with powdered sugar coating every surface.  Those on the other side of the room had been making dozens upon dozens of toys and tools and clothes, yarn and wood and plastic parts scattered everywhere.

Except all activity in the room had ceased, and hundreds of pairs of eyes were fixed on Sherlock and John.

“Oh god no,” Sherlock hissed, and the horde stampeded.

“ ** _MASTER SHERLOCK!!!!!!!!!!!_** ” roared the mass, pressing in on all sides.

“ _MOTHER, HELP_ ,” Sherlock bellowed.  John, for his part, simply clung to Sherlock’s back and let his mind enter a blissfully blank state of shock.

The noise seemed to last for an eternity, but then their saviour came in the form of a tall, elegant woman, who simply said, “ _Quiet,_ ” but in such a way that it seemed to sweep and echo through the room.

The jubilant, smiling swarm that had crowded around Sherlock and John backed away and parted to let the woman through.  She was really _incredibly_ tall—taller even than Sherlock—and paler than him, too; her hair was a snowy white that cascaded past her shoulders.  She glided across the room and came up to her son, placing a long-fingered hand on his cheek.

“Hello, Sherlock,” she said expressionlessly.

“Hello, Mummy,” Sherlock returned.

She glanced around her son.  “Whom have you brought with you?”

Sherlock stepped to the side, leaving John to stand on wobbly legs.  “This is my friend and colleague, Dr. John Watson.”

John craned his neck upwards to look the woman face-to-face.  Her cold, piercing eyes were a frightening shade of blue.  He tried to summon his voice.

“He’s about to faint,” she evaluated.

And yep, John thought distantly, that sounded about right.  He drifted to the floor with a thud.

When his vision came swimming back, he found himself raised slightly off the floor in Sherlock’s arms.  Sherlock himself was scowling down at him.

“Really, John, I would have thought you’d have had more fortitude than that.  You invaded Afghanistan, for god’s sake.”

“You dragged us through a fucking _fire_ and I found myself being attacked on all sides by a fucking army of _elves_ in a room that shouldn’t be here and I’m suddenly meeting your mother,” John grumbled.  “How the fuck am I supposed to take that?”

“Sherlock, that was unkind of you not to warn him ahead of time,” said Sherlock’s mother, peering over her son’s shoulder down at John.

Sherlock’s brow furrowed as he considered this.  “Well, I _did_ attempt to warn him what we were doing, but he didn’t believe me.  How was I to warn him?”  He sighed and offered John a mildly sympathetic look.  “Though I suppose I should have considered the possibility of your reaction and planned accordingly.  For that I apologise, John.”

“Yes, fine,” John said, pushing himself to sit up on his own.  A female elf passed him a cup of something warm.  “Ah, thank you, Miss...?”

“Chestnut,” said the elf cheerily.  “And you’re welcome!”

John took a sip and discovered it was hot toddy, then immediately took another sip.  “Mm, thank you, it’s delicious.”  Feeling distinctly more himself, he cast a sheepish grin towards Sherlock’s mum.  “So I take it you’re Mrs. Holmes?”

She nodded solemnly.  “Snegurochka Holmes.”

John paused mid-sip.  “Sorry?”

“Just call me ‘Mummy,’” she said.  “Most everyone does.”

Sherlock stood up and offered John a hand, which John took after giving the cup back to Chestnut.  Standing on his own two feet once more, John cleared his throat and, face pink with embarrassment, stuck out a hand towards Mrs. Holmes.

“It’s, ah, nice to meet you, Mum, and I’m sorry about the, uh, that.”

She grasped his hand carefully, and John’s eyes widened with surprise—her hands were like ice.  John blinked and noticed that her lips were nearly blue.  She slowly shook his hand and said, “It is understandable.  Apologies are not necessary.  It is also nice to meet you, John.  I have heard much of you from Mycroft.”

“...Ah,” John said, not having the slightest idea how to reply to that, wondering how he should bring up the fact that Sherlock’s mum was not the temperature a normal human being should be.  At least not a live one.

She released his hand and turned to her son.  “So you are fulfilling The Obligation this year, Sherlock,” she stated.  “That should be an interesting challenge for you.”

“It’s far from interesting, Mummy,” Sherlock retorted, then airily waved a hand.  “Mycroft declares some sort of _urgent_ elections as his excuse.”

“Regardless, my son, it is enjoyable to see you,” she declared calmly.  She gestured over the heads of the masses.  “A sentiment keenly felt by the _domovyye_ , as you can see,” her voice switching in and out of the Russian gurgle with ease.

The...whatever they were...beamed up at them.

“Yes, hello everyone,” Sherlock said, raising his eyes to the ceiling.  “Thank you for nearly trampling us to death.”

Their aura of goodwill was unaffected.  John offered a bit of a wave and smiled to see a few of them wave back.

“You’re really Father Christmas,” John said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“This year,” Sherlock replied.  “I don’t plan on being it again unless Mycroft should suddenly meet his demise.”

John looked to his scowling flatmate.  “You never thought to mention the fact that your family is...related to Father Christmas?”

“Would you have believed me?”

“No.”

“Then there would not have been any point,” Sherlock said, reaching down to lift his bag from the ground back onto his shoulder.

John took his cue and picked up his own bag from where it had dropped in front of the fireplace, which John noted to have nothing but stone behind the crackling fire.

Mummy Holmes gazed down at the elves and said, “Please return to your work.  We will exchange further greetings once my son and his guest are settled.”

With a chorus of “ _Da, Matushka!_ ” the herd filed back to their stations.  Mummy Holmes glided towards an oval-shaped opening at the far end of the room; Sherlock followed behind her; John followed behind _him_ , gazing wide-eyed at everything he could see, a place he’d only dreamed about when he was a kid.

It was like walking inside a cuckoo clock straight out of the Black Forest—everything seemed to be made of well-polished wood, with leaves and various forest animals carved into the moulding.  Chandeliers were fashioned out of reindeer antlers, and clumps of poinsettias, holly, ivy, and evergreen branches seemed to dress every rounded doorway.  Sections of walls were cut out and fitted with stained glass windows that didn’t appear to actually connect with the outside, but instead connected with another room, making them backlit with a warm yellow-orange glow—most of the windows depicted proud-looking reindeer, though John discovered one or two oddities, such as the one with a gigantic cat eating people,[1] another with an eight-legged horse,[2] and a...well, John had no idea what that one was, but it looked like something out of _Where the Wild Things Are._ [3]

Streams of elves were moving about the corridors, looking eagerly and curiously at the new arrivals, carrying various tools or boxes with them.  John looked curiously back at them, now that the initial shock and disbelief had worn off.  Most of them were about the height of John’s waist, dressed colourfully but simply in green, red, yellow, or sometimes blue jumpers with brown slacks.  There was a bit of an inhuman pointiness in their noses, ears, and chins, but otherwise they seemed more or less human, varying in ages and with an even mix of genders from what John could tell.

Mummy Holmes was saying up ahead, “Most of the rooms are living quarters for the _domovyye_ , John, but we do have a few rooms of our own.”  They walked across a wide atrium with a glass-domed skylight overhead, which displayed the thick ribbon-arches of the aurora borealis blazing outside.  The atrium branched off in eight different directions, and she led them towards one entrance with three stars carved over the archway.  “This wing is primarily for our use.”  She paused near one open door and gestured within.  “The breakfast room, for example.”

John peeked in and observed a cosy but sufficiently plain little eating area, with a small table, chairs, and a few cupboards with a refrigerator and a toaster.  There was one large multi-paned window looking outside, where it was just...dark.

“Right, good,” John said.

They moved on.  She waved vaguely toward an open room that seemed to have been lowered into the ground, which had a handful of steps leading into the heavily furred room—a polar bear rug on the floor and armchairs backed with what John guessed were caribou pelts.  There was a massive fireplace near the back of the room, a snooker table off to one side, and a modest shelf of books on another side.  “Communal family living space,” she declared.  John nodded, and they kept moving.

“My room,” she said, not bothering to stop at the closed door.

Sherlock, however, did stop.  “No, Mummy, this is my room.”

John glanced at the door—it had a rabbit carved over the top, but nothing else to really signify it as Sherlockian.

Mrs. Holmes paused and glanced over her shoulder.  “Son, you know why I can’t return to my former room,” she said, and John could’ve sworn he felt a chill pass over him.

Sherlock fidgeted briefly.  “Yes, of course,” he murmured.  “But why couldn’t you take _Mycroft’s_ room?”

“Because your elder brother visits more often,” she said simply, with neither warmth nor chill.  “He also locks his door.”

“ _I_ lock my door!” Sherlock protested.

Mrs. Holmes was already moving on.  “Not as well as Mycroft locks _his_ door, Sherlock,” she said.

John didn’t bother suppressing a small smirk at Sherlock’s irritation.

“Where are John and I supposed to sleep, then?” Sherlock grumbled.

“In the room remaining.”  She stopped beside a door that was opened inwards, with elaborate rune and animal carvings inscribed all over the threshold and a sprig of white-berried mistletoe hanging over the top.

Sherlock’s eyes widened slightly.  “You’re sure?” he asked.

She shrugged.  “It is the logical option.”

Sherlock hummed an agreeing noise and then frowned at the doorway, placing a hand over the yawning space that led into the dark room.  “Still locked.  Not exactly a surprise.”

“What do you mean ‘locked’?” John asked, eyebrows furrowed.  “It’s wide open.”

Sherlock sent John a wry look and knocked on the air.  It very audibly made a knocking sound.  “Enchanted lock, John, do keep up.”  He sighed.  “I suppose it can’t be helped.”  He reached over, grabbed John by the front of his jumper, and pulled him into a short, abrupt kiss on the mouth.

The air made a clicking noise, then a creaking noise, and suddenly a fire started in the room’s fireplace.  Sherlock had already released John and entered into the room, tossing his bag at the foot of a large sleigh bed.  John was still standing wide-eyed at the threshold.

“What the hell was that?” he asked after a long moment, blinking back to awareness.  There were far too many unexpected things happening today, even with the sheer existence of Sherlock being taken into account.

Sherlock was busy picking things up from a vanity and removing clothing from a wardrobe.

Mrs. Holmes answered instead.  “It’s a mistletoe lock,” she said, pointing upwards towards the white-berried plant.  “Only two people can enter the room at one time, and only after they’ve kissed each other.  Rather effective at keeping children out.”  The last she said with the tiniest flicker of a smile, which immediately vanished.  “Convenient for marriage.  Inconvenient for widowed life.”

John blinked and felt a bit horrible when he realised what she meant.  “So this was your room, then.  I’m so sorry.”

“Nothing to apologise for,” she stated, looking over John’s head into her former room, where Sherlock was gathering things from a desk and putting them on the bed.  “It will be agreeable to see the room fulfilling its intended use.”

John blushed, just a little, still feeling a bit of a shocked tingle on his mouth.  He licked his lips.  “Ah, Sherlock and I, we’re not, well, we’re not.”

She slowly turned her gaze downwards to meet John’s eye.  Her face seemed to be made of nothing but sharp angles, and John could immediately tell where Sherlock got his cheekbones from, though he must have gotten the mouth from his dad, because hers was just a thin, bluish pair of flat lips.  She blinked slowly, and John noticed that her eyelashes were pure white, framing the iced-blue iris of her eyes.

“Then I expect,” she declared, “that you will be getting to know each other better.”

John shivered; the tone of her voice had made it sound like a grim and inevitable pronouncement.  God help him, and he’d just remembered that she was also _Mycroft’s_ mother.  That could mean anything, then.  That could even be a threat.  But what was it she was threatening, if she was even threatening him at all?

“Mummy,” interrupted Sherlock, handing her a huge sack made out of the room’s bedding.  “I’ve collected a number of your and father’s things and removed the linens.  They should all be in there.  If not I’ll deliver the rest.”

“Thank you, Sherlock,” she said, taking the bag.  “I will send for new mattresses and clean bedding.  I regret that I was unable to do it myself.”

“No need for concern,” Sherlock murmured, then leaned across the threshold and kissed her on the cheek.  Her smile flickered and evaporated.  “John and I will see you at supper.  Well, John, don’t just stand there, come in and get yourself arranged.”

“Ah, right,” John said, hefting his bag and going in.  “Oh, and nice to meet you, Mrs. Holmes!” he called after the retreating figure of Sherlock’s mother, who simply waved back in response without turning her head.

He set his bag next to Sherlock’s and looked around—besides the bed, there were two small armchairs in front of a crackling fireplace, a vanity, a secretaire, and two wardrobes.  Sherlock was inspecting the room, pulling open various drawers; he opened a door in the corner and made a small noise of surprise.

“The bath is palatial compared to the tiny thing Mycroft and I had to share,” he muttered absently.

John walked over and looked in, whistling in appreciation.  There was the requisite toilet and his-and-hers sink, but there was also a good-sized tub at the back raised well off the floor and surrounded by a wooden frame.  However, there was a panel missing at the bottom of the frame where it looked like...John went in the room and inspected, discovering that, yes, it looked like there was a rounded stone pit underneath the raised tub where one could put hot coals to keep the hot water hot enough.  Ancient hot tub.

Sherlock, meanwhile, had found another wooden door leading off from the bath.  “Sauna,” he stated.

“God, really?” John said, grinning and getting up from the floor.  “Your parents were holding out on you.”

They heard a tiny voice come from beyond the main room: “Master Sherlock!  We’ve brought mattresses and linens!”

“Good,” said Sherlock, sweeping out of the bath.  John followed, watching as four elves passed a large bundle of linens over the threshold, which Sherlock caught and threw into a corner.  Another eight elves dragged over two doubles mattresses and leaned them against the corridor wall.  “Thank you, everyone, John and I can take it from here.”

They chorused a “You’re welcome!” and tramped along out of sight.

Sherlock turned to John and sighed, looking rather glum.  “Well then, we have beds to make.”

“Bed,” John corrected, a twinge of self-consciousness rising up as he recalled the very recent mistletoe moment.

“Hm?” replied Sherlock, picking up a clean pillow and fluffing it.

“There’s only one bed.”

“No John, there’s two.”  He placed a hand over the middle of the curved footboard and yanked hard to the right.  The bed split evenly in half.  John could’ve sworn there was nothing but a seamless plane of mattress there before.  “I imagine there were at least a few of the bed’s forbearers that were kickers.  Or perhaps some of the stuffier ones deemed it improper to sleep in the same bed as one’s spouse.  Or, more likely, the ancient carpenter who designed the bed frame came to the wise realisation that sometimes couples are occasionally too upset with each other to sleep in close proximity.  In any case, two beds, which can be easily slotted together to create one, should the owners wish.”

“That’s good.  Very...good,” John said, awkwardness fading.  He went to one end of a bed and lifted the mattress.  “Your parents got along then, I take it.”

“Safe presumption,” Sherlock agreed, coming over to help lift the one mattress and set it against the bedroom wall.

John paused, a sudden horrid feeling washing over him.  “Um, your dad, he didn’t...um, die here, did he?” he asked.

“Of course not,” Sherlock replied easily.  “He died in London.”

“So you didn’t live here?”

Sherlock gave him a frankly horrified look.  “Don’t be _absurd_ , John!  We only stayed for December and early January.  There isn’t so much as a radio tower for _hundreds_ of kilometres; we couldn’t possibly _live_ here.”

“All right, fine, I was just...checking,” John said.  “Your mum seems to live here, though, doesn’t she?”

“Recently, yes.  God knows why.”  They went over to the other side of the massive bed frame, lifting the other ancient mattress out.

“Your mum is...does she seem... _cold_ , to you?” John asked, since the thought had been nagging at him for quite a while.

Sherlock’s eyebrows furrowed.  “You think so?  I thought she seemed rather friendlier than usual.  But if she does seem somewhat detached, John, don’t take it personally; it’s just in her nature.  Watch out for the armchair.”

John frowned and manoeuvred his end of the mattress around the chair.  “No, I mean _literally_ cold.  As in a frigid body temperature that would normally mean severe hypothermia at the least.”

“That’s normal, John.”

“...Not really,” John said carefully, shuffling into the corridor.

“She’s a former snow maiden, John, it’s normal for _her_.”

John waited for Sherlock to explain more.  They set the old mattress against a corridor wall.  When he did not explain more, John reminded him, “Wasn’t aware Father Christmas was even real, remember?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes.  “ _Snegurochka_.  Russian snow fairy.  Snow spirit.  Whatever you want to call it.  She was one, met my father, he melted her a bit, then she became human.  Well, mostly, in the ways that matter.  Though she’s refrosted significantly since Father’s passing.”[4]

“...Oh,” John said.  “So you’re part...snow fairy?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes once again, adding in a huff of irritation.  “ _No_ , John, you’re not paying attention.  She became _human_.  I am human.”

“Well, it’s just that it would...explain a lot.”

They picked up a new mattress and started to carry it back in, then bumped into the locked air.  Sherlock groaned.

“...We have to kiss _every_ time to get in?” John said, with no small amount of horror.

“It would appear so,” Sherlock muttered darkly, then went over and swooped his lips across John’s before either of them had a chance to really think about it.  “Quick, get in, I don’t know if it’s a timed lock or not.”  They scurried the mattress in and tossed it on the bed frame.

They both paused.

“I could just...kip on a sofa in the living room,” John said.  “I wouldn’t mind, really.”

Sherlock placed his hands on his hips.  “We’ve shared a room before, John.”

“Not one where we had to kiss each other to get in all the time.”

“Well, if you slept on the sofa, I would _also_ have to sleep on the sofa, because I can’t get in here on my own.”

“Oh, right,” John mumbled.

“And believe me, John, if the mattresses in _here_ were old, the furniture in the living room is positively ancient.  We’ll just have to get used to it.”  Sherlock stalked out into the corridor.

John sighed in defeat and followed him.  They picked up the mattress, brought it to the door, and then Sherlock stepped over to John.

John tensed, his face burning, then promptly told himself to suck it up.  It was only Sherlock, after all.  No big deal.

Sherlock raised an amused eyebrow.  “Just think of it as a handshake with lips,” he said.

“That’s really _not_ what a mrph—is,” John replied, interrupted by a surprise peck mid-sentence.  He scowled and waited until Sherlock had picked up his end of the mattress and started carrying it in before he pulled his lips into his mouth and bit on them, hard, to make the tingly feeling go away.

“For the record,” John said as they dropped the second mattress on the other half of the bed frame.  “I’d appreciate a warning before you do that.”

“Why?” Sherlock said blandly, tossing many pillows onto his half.  “You already know it’s coming.”

“Common courtesy, Sherlock,” John said, picking up a mattress cover sheet and tucking it in neatly at the corners.

“Dull,” Sherlock muttered, but at John’s sudden glare, he added, “But noted.”  Then he threw a single quilt onto his mattress and declared his bed made. 

 

* * *

 

[1]The Yule Cat ( _Jólakötturinn_ or _Jólaköttur_ ), a monster from Icelandic folklore that roams the countryside during the Christmas season and eats anyone that has not received any new clothes to wear before Christmas Eve.  Apparently, this was created as an incentive for workers to finish processing their autumn wool before Christmas; those that did were rewarded with new clothes, and those that did not had to face the wrath of the giant man-eating cat.  Artistic representations:

 

"STOP RIGHT THERE, BUDDY, I SAW YOU WEARING THAT JUMPER _LAST YEAR!_ "  _\--_ Yule Cat: The World’s Most Terrifying Fashion Police.

[2] Sleipnir, the god Wodan/Odin’s steed.  In pre-Christian Europe, Wodan/Odin was the one who went around during The Wild Hunt (whilst riding on Sleipnir) bringing gifts to respectful worshippers during the Yuletide season.  However, if you tried to stop the Hunt, you tended to mysteriously vanish.  Yeah, it’s better not to mess with the Wild Hunt, since it has this whole…deathly aura about it.  Artistic representations:

 Happy Yule!  Get out of our way or we'll kill you!

 

 

Sleipnir – he can play ALL the parts in “Step In Time”

 

[3] Whatever the hell this is:

 

Okay, so it’s actually a Badalisc.  What’s a Badalisc, you might ask?  Nobody’s quite sure, but it’s a mythical creature of the Val Camonica, in the southern central Alps and northern Italy.  Every year it’s captured during Epiphany (Jan 5 and 6) and led into town, where it makes a speech (as related through an “interpreter”) gossiping about the people in the community, revealing all their sins and schemes.  After the speech, there’s singing, dancing, feasting, etc., and the Badalisc is given a place of honour during the feast.  Then, when everything’s over, they release it back into the woods from whence it came.

[4] More or less, Snegurochka (literally “Snow Maiden”) is how Sherlock explains it.  She’s a figure in Russian fairy tales that appeared in the latter half of the nineteenth century; there are a few different versions of her story, but Sherlock’s mum is more inspired by the opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, which is titled, predictably, _The Snow Maiden: A Spring Fairy Tale_.  As a folklore character, Snegurochka has appeared since Soviet times as the granddaughter and helper of Ded Moroz (Grandfather/Old Man Frost, the Russian version of Father Christmas) during New Year’s parties to help hand out presents (the Soviet Union abolished Christmas, so they shifted gift-giving stuff to New Year’s).  The character is unique in this type of holiday tradition in that there are no other female helpers for the Father Christmas figure in any other culture (unless you count Mrs. Claus as a helper).  Artistic representation:


	3. Dinner and a Premonition

John made Sherlock wait until he was finished making his own bed before they carried out the other old mattress and sought out the dining room, much to Sherlock’s impatience.  Once the soldier in John was satisfied with the tucked-in corners and unwrinkled spread of the sheets, they set out, Sherlock leading the way.

“It must have been something,” John commented as they approached the atrium, looking at a group of elves that passed by.  “To have grown up knowing your dad was Father Christmas and all.  I mean, this place...” He looked up at the blazon of lights dancing overhead.  “...it’s every kid’s dream.”

Sherlock snorted, leading them down a pathway marked by a pair of crossed candy canes, where several lines of elves were going.  “What you believe to be the embodiment of childhood, John, is essentially a commune whose sole purpose is to propagate seasonal charity.  It loses its charm over time, I assure you.”

John sent him a look of amused disbelief.  “Well, aren’t you the little Scrooge?”

Sherlock furrowed his eyebrows.  “Who?”

John blinked.  “Scrooge.  Ebenezer Scrooge.”

Sherlock failed to react.

“C’mon, _A Christmas Carol_ , Charles Dickens, bloke gets visited by three spirits, you’ve _got_ to know that one!  They play it all the time on the telly at Christmas!”

“There is no telly here, John,” Sherlock said witheringly, then suddenly looked thoughtful.  “You said three spirits?”

“Yeah, the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.”

Sherlock pulled his mouth into a frown.  “Peculiar.  That sounds like the story of my great-great uncle Albert.”

John stopped in his tracks, right outside a large set of double-doors.  “You’re _joking_.  Are you telling me you’re _related_ to Ebenezer Scrooge?!  He’s not even a real person!”

Sherlock stopped and raised an eyebrow.  “No, John, I’m telling you I’m related to my great-great uncle Albert Holmes.  Old morality tale passed down in the family.  Ends with him getting carried off by the Devil or something; I usually stopped listening after the part with the door-knocker.”

“That’s not how it ends!” John objected.  “It ends with Scrooge learning his lesson and becoming a good person and then Tiny Tim lives!”

Sherlock looked at him like he’d lost his mind, then sighed and rolled his eyes.  “Writers and their _incessant_ habit of commercialism.  Why can’t you lot report anything without making it into fanciful drivel?”  Slowly, the frown turned into a smirk.  “In any case, it seems I’ve escaped your insipid holiday films all along by being here.  I suppose that’s one benefit for this place.”  He pushed open the set of double-doors, and John's jaw dropped in awe once again.

Thousands upon thousands of shining strings of silver and gold tinsel were hanging down from the ceiling, with intricate, curly-swirly ornaments tied at their ends.  There were dozens of tables laden with food and elves seated around them, with one table raised at the back of the room where Mummy Holmes was seated.  But what really caught John’s eye was an enormous fountain smack dab in the middle of the room that was cascading what smelled and appeared to be champagne.

“‘It loses its charm,’ my arse,” John said.

Sherlock ignored him and walked past the rows of chattering elves and around the fountain, approaching the far table and taking his place at the head with a heavy _thwump_ that John recognised as Sherlock going into a strop.  John took the chair next to him and smiled over at Mrs. Holmes on Sherlock’s left side.

She nodded in return and raised a single eyebrow at her son, apparently recognising the symptoms of an oncoming strop as well.  “Sherlock, remember you will be here until your birthday,” she said.

“That is _exactly_ what I did not want to be reminded of, Mother,” Sherlock snapped.

“I mean, son, that it will not be of benefit to you to dispirit before your first day is even over,” she replied.

Sherlock simply grunted in reply and picked apart a croissant, but their comments prompted John to ask, “Why does he need to be here that long?  I mean, it’s quite lovely here, Mum, don’t get me wrong, but Christmas is just one day.”

Sherlock let out a long sigh.

Mrs. Holmes took the question as she seemed to take all things, calmly and somewhat impassively.  “The Obligation covers more than just Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  The gift-giving tradition is chronologically inconsistent across the Earth; different cultures assign a mythical gift-giver to deliver for different days.  For example, significant portions of Europe prefer December 5th or 6th, St. Nicholas Day, for the appearance of their respective gift-giver.  Other places prefer the start of the New Year for gift-giving.  Others still prefer January 5th or 6th, coinciding with Epiphany.  Most prefer Christmas, of course.”

John gulped back an abrupt mouthful of coffee.  “You have to go around the world _four_ times?” he said, turning to Sherlock.

Sherlock glared at him and tossed a piece of croissant in his general direction.  “Precisely,” he muttered, sinking lower into his chair.  “Why couldn’t everyone just be _Jewish?_ ” he hissed.

“Jewish,” John said, raising an eyebrow.  “And is there a reason you’d prefer that, specifically?”

“They at least can agree on when all their holidays are.  And The Obligation would be irrelevant.”

John smiled.  “Well, you’ve got a point there.  We’d be spared from bad Christmas songs every year.”

Sherlock flickered a smile back at him and chewed a bit of croissant, which John considered a mild success in cheering him up.

Mrs. Holmes gazed at John with what he hoped was a vague sense of approval.  His suspicions were left unconfirmed when she remarked, “I understand why Sherlock appreciates your company.”

They tucked in to their meal, which consisted of goose, gravy, potatoes, and some sort of vegetable, in relative silence.  John noted with no small amount of surprise that Sherlock ended up eating a significant amount, though he made a point not to comment on it, because commenting on Sherlock doing something favourable was a sure-fire way to get him to stop doing it.  However, when the dessert plate came around, Sherlock pushed it away from him emphatically.

Sherlock caught John’s eye and said, “Sweets are offered at every waking opportunity here, John.  It is the elves’ personal mission in life to engender universal rotundity, and they find in Mycroft a routine success.  If you’re not careful, the same will happen to you.”

John smirked into his tea mug even as Mrs. Holmes sent her son an inscrutable look and just said, “Sherlock.”

Sherlock smiled at her, then suddenly blinked and went wide-eyed.  His face lost all its colour and he sat back against his chair, squeezing his eyes shut and inhaling sharply.

John quickly put down his mug and leaned over, a hand on Sherlock’s shoulder.  “Sherlock, you okay?  What’s wrong?”

Sherlock was rubbing his fingers in small circles over one of his temples, eyes still tightly shut.  He waved John off with his other hand.

Mrs. Holmes rested a palm on her son’s arm.  “It has started then?” she asked.

“Yes,” Sherlock replied, opening his eyes and sitting up straight again.  He inhaled and exhaled slowly.

John didn’t dare take his eyes off Sherlock.  “What’s started?” he asked curtly.  “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Sherlock rumbled.  “It’s expected.  The onset of temporary omniscience.”

John raised both of his eyebrows.  “...Sorry, what?”

Sherlock sent him a disparaging, miserable look.  “In order to judge millions of children’s yearly behaviour, I can’t exactly just pop in and ask all of their parents, now can I?  So, this.”  He gestured vaguely towards his head.  “I get all of their thoughts and records of their behaviour delivered here.  Along with billions of other people wishing for things.  That’s the affliction of being a gift-giver; you always know what people want.”

John gawped.  “That…can you handle all that?”

Sherlock didn’t exactly reply to that; he just chuckled broodingly under his breath.  It worried the hell out of John.  “Sherlock?”

Sherlock’s mother looked at John and added, “There is also—”

“Don’t speak of it _now_ ,” Sherlock hissed at her with a sudden glare.  “I don’t need to be reminded of it _now_ , _Mother._ ”

She simply raised an eyebrow at him, utterly unflappable.  “As you wish, son.”

John looked between them in confusion.  “Seriously, what’s going on?  If I’m here to help, I think I ought to know.”

Sherlock waved him off with a tired-sounding, “Not now,” then turned to his mother and said, “I must…start the List.”

She nodded.  “Could you say a short greeting to the elves before you retire?  I did promise them you would.”

Sherlock groaned but inclined his head.  He stood up and cleared his throat, suddenly snapping back into his confident and supercilious demeanour.  “If everyone would shut up, please.”

At that, the massive congregation of elves turned to the back of the room and cheered, “SPEECH!!”

Sherlock held up a hand, and they instantly fell into silence.  “Thank you.  You all know who I am, obviously, and why I’m here.  I’ll spare us the time of going over tired platitudes that you’ve heard time and again.  You don’t know my companion, John Watson—” Here, Sherlock gestured to John, who started and waved hesitantly at the crowd.  “—who is a good man and a friend.  He will undoubtedly get lost at some point, so direct him where he needs to go.  His favourite biscuits are Scottish shortbread.  Do not overfeed him.  Good night.  Come on, John.”  With that, he started towards the door.

The crowd cheered, and John quickly got up, thanked Mummy Holmes for supper, and hurried after Sherlock.  As soon as the massive double-door shut behind them, Sherlock let his shoulders droop.  They began the walk back to their room.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” John asked, wary.

“It will pass,” Sherlock rumbled.  “Or at least become more bearable, so I’ve been told.”

John’s steps faltered.  “Wait, you’ve never done this before?”

Sherlock shook his head.  “I’ve assisted.  Never took up the post myself.”

“That’s...That’s not reassuring, Sherlock.”

Sherlock glared.  “Thank you for your vote of confidence, John, it’s not as though I _wanted_ to do this to begin with,” he snapped.

“Sorry,” John said quietly.

They stood at the threshold to their room, and John looked up at Sherlock, who looked drained; the normal vivacity in his eyes had diminished, and his skin seemed wan.  Sherlock cleared his throat slightly and stated, “John, I’m about to kiss you.”

John felt his insides tense, then said, “Right, go on, then.”

It felt like the ghost of a kiss, a vague sensation of warm breath and soft lips recalled only on waking from a hazy and ill-remembered dream—a memory quickly put aside while going about one’s day, leaving behind the nagging feeling that something important has been forgotten.  They parted, and the invisible lock clicked and creaked.

Sherlock went in and collapsed into a chair in front of the fireplace, his eyes on the dusty clutter resting on the mantle shelf.

John went in and realised he’d kissed Sherlock Holmes no less than four times in a single day.  Then he realised that he’d have to expect a minimum of at least thirty-three more kisses from Sherlock during their stay, and possibly more if they had to go in and out of the bedroom frequently.

That’d be more kisses than he’d gotten in the entirety of the past year alone, all of his girlfriends and casual dates combined.

The realisation honestly made him feel a bit pitiful.  He looked carefully to his friend, who’d scarcely blinked since sitting down and looked as though he was worlds away.  “Are you okay?” he asked.

For a moment, Sherlock just continued to stare at the shelf, then he said, “You may as well sleep, John.”

John fidgeted.  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No,” Sherlock said curtly.  Slowly, he stood up again, went to the secretaire, and pulled out an enormous book from a drawer.  He dropped the book with an ominous thud onto the desk.  Sitting down, he began to tap his finger next to some names and strike out a few others, with little green checkmarks and red lines appearing as he touched the page.

John waited a few seconds more in the silence before going into the bath and brushing his teeth.  Then he brushed them again for good measure, worrying vaguely over what Mummy Holmes had declared so gravely: _you will be getting to know each other better_.

 

* * *

_The Learn A Thing Corner:_

Hey readers, do you want a map?  Of course you want a map.  Maps are GREAT.

Here is a map of roughly what areas in Europe might observe St. Nicholas Day in terms of a mythical gift-giving capacity ( **ETA 12/30/15** : Now with revised map, since the old one...disappeared?):

Note that the word I used is "might."  As in, I'm not _completely_ certain to what extent these countries celebrate St. Nicholas Day, but there has been at least some hint that they do.  The lighter purple ones I'm especially unclear on.  So take this info with a grain of salt and picture me just waving vaguely over Europe like a confused weather reporter (and hey, if you live in any of these countries and have a more accurate idea about whether an old man figure comes along and gives kids sweets or small presents, etc., on Dec. 5 or 6 [or not] feel free to speak up--I like having accurate info).

But what I'm fairly clear about is:

  * It's very big in the Netherlands and Belgium
  * It's also observed in some regions of Northern France and several German-speaking countries
  * It's also observed to a very minimal extent in some places in the United States (and presumably some places in Canada) with strong German influence



So...yay for Learning A Thing!


	4. Smoke and Transformation

John was awakened on the morning of December 5th by the confusing and overpowering smell of smoke, followed immediately by Sherlock shaking his shoulder.  “Wake up, John.  You need to get ready.”

John started coughing and looked up to find Sherlock looming over him, his curly hair turned a shocking white.  A long-stemmed cherry-wood pipe protruded from between his teeth, and smoke billowed thickly from the bowl.

“Sherlock, what the hell?” John coughed, reaching for the pipe only to have Sherlock step out of reach.  “Where did you get that?!”

“I found it on the mantle,” Sherlock replied stiffly.  He moved towards the fireplace and picked up a plain, unmarked tobacco tin from the shelf.  He sucked in several puffs of pipe smoke and released it slowly, closing his eyes.  “Two Virginia types—Bright and Red—lending to smoothness and sweetness.  Macedonian and other Oriental tobaccos, giving it the touch of spice.  Latakia,” he said with a sigh, opening his eyes again.  “Providing smokiness, but not an overpowering presence, as can be the case with other Latakia blends.  And just a touch of unflavoured toasted Black Cavendish.  Smoky and somewhat spicy on the intake, sweet on the exhale.  Medium strength, burns cool, dry, lacks bite, coarse cut, likely manufactured in the United States.  Hearth & Home’s Sunjammer Blend.”

Sherlock frowned slightly.  “It’s not the blend my father smoked, however.  I wonder how it got here.”

John was caught between awe at the deduction and righteous anger.  He compromised by allowing himself a second of awe, then fell into anger.  “It doesn’t bloody well matter how it got there, Sherlock!  You _quit_!”

Sherlock scowled at him.  “I’m currently a semi-mythical being, John.  Cancer and lung disease are not a concern.”

“It doesn’t _matter_ ,” John hissed, swinging his legs out of bed and storming over to Sherlock, reaching once again for the pipe.  Sherlock growled and shied away.  “ _Sherlock_.”  John made an effort to breathe in and out slowly before he continued.  “I’m not about to stand here and let you fall back into the habit.  Give me the pipe,” he said, as neutrally and authoritatively as he could manage.

“I’m not about to let you have my father’s pipe,” Sherlock countered.  “You’d likely bin it.”

“Fine, we’ll give it to your mother for safekeeping,” John replied, still holding out a hand for the pipe.

Sherlock ignored him, puffing on his pipe and staring fixedly at a small clock on the far left of the mantle, which read 7:20.  It was then that John noticed the dark circles under Sherlock’s eyes.

“Sherlock, is everything okay?” John said carefully.  “Did you get the List done for today?”

“Yes,” Sherlock replied.

“Did you get any sleep?”

Sherlock declined to answer, the crease between his eyebrows standing out clearly, which John took for a ‘No.’

“You’re nervous,” John concluded.

“I am not nervous,” Sherlock snapped, finally removing the pipe so he could turn and glare at John properly.  “Countless others have taken up the post before me, with repeated trials confirming that the task can be done successfully.  In fact, _every_ occasion has passed without incident.  I am not the first to do this, John.  There is no cause for concern.”

“No, you’re not the first,” John agreed gently.  “But this is your first time doing it.”

“Irrelevant,” Sherlock retorted, turning back sharply to the clock. 

John crossed his arms, waiting for Sherlock to say something else.  When he didn’t, John put his hands on his hips and looked down briefly, then back up again.  “The hair’s different,” he commented.

“Is it?” Sherlock replied absently, setting down the pipe.  He moved into the bath to look at himself in the mirror; John followed and leaned against the doorway, watching as Sherlock curled a finger around one of the locks.  “I suppose…it is to be expected,” Sherlock said at last.  “White hair is said to be a sign of wisdom.”

“Or old age,” John added with a small smile, trying for humour.

“…Yes,” Sherlock replied after a long moment, staring into his reflection.  His forehead wrinkled.  “I feel old, John.  Older than I remember.  How old am I?”

John raised his eyebrows.  “Um, thirty-seven, I think.”

“Is that so,” Sherlock stated.  The dark circles under his wide-eyed expression made him look…lost.  “…Is that so,” he repeated.

John stepped forward and placed a hand on his arm.  “Sherlock, you okay?  You’re not acting like yourself.”

Sherlock blinked and straightened his posture, looking slightly more alert.  “I’m not supposed to be myself, John, I’m Father Christmas.”

John sighed, still keeping his hold on Sherlock’s arm.  “Is the omniscience getting to you?”

Sherlock paused.  “I am...adjusting,” he decided.  “There is still a residual ache present.  And it’s a limited omniscience, John.  I know the thoughts, actions, and occasionally the future potentials of billions of people on Earth, not whether a single bird is falling in a forest or why an unknown phenomenon has turned my hair white.  It’s enough to be going on with, don’t you think?”  The last he added with the hint of a condescending smirk, still not quite the Sherlock John was used to, but getting there.

John, hoping to coax Sherlock out of this unusual mood, said lightly, “Rather defeats the purpose of calling it ‘omniscience,’ then.”

Sherlock snorted and rolled his eyes.  “If you wish to argue semantics, talk to Mummy.  It’s more her area than mine.”  He turned to John, and John could see his old friend coming back in full.  “You should hurry and get ready, John.  We haven’t got all day.”

John nodded and let go of Sherlock’s arm, putting his hands back on his hips.  “Okay.  But listen to me, Sherlock, you will _not_ be smoking when I come back out, understand?  We’ll go to breakfast, and we’ll give the pipe and tobacco to your mother.  This is not up for debate.”

John waited patiently, and Sherlock nodded before heading out of the bath.  Satisfied, John grabbed a set of clothes from his pack in the main room, went into the bath, and went about his business.  When he came back out, he found that Sherlock was standing by the fireplace and wearing a long, black coat—one that brushed against his heels, with grey-white fur trim thickly lining the collar, the edge of the sleeves, and down the front. 

“Nice coat,” John said.

“What?” Sherlock replied, looking away from the fire.  “It’s the same one as usual, John.”

“...No, it is not,” John said with certainty.

Sherlock frowned and looked down his front, then at the sleeves.  “Well, it _was_ ,” he replied.

“…It changed your coat,” John concluded.

“It would appear so.”

John decided to just accept this oddity, then held out his hand and waited.  With an eye roll, Sherlock pulled out the pipe and tobacco tin from a coat pocket, which John took.  They exited their bedroom and made their way down the hallway in silence.

On entering the breakfast room, they found Mrs. Holmes already seated at the table and reading a book, her empty plate to one side.  She looked up and placed a serviette in the book to mark her page.  John held up the pipe and tin, saying, “Mum, Sherlock missed these when he was cleaning out the bedroom.  Thought you might want them back.”

Mrs. Holmes raised a single eyebrow on seeing the objects, then slowly turned her gaze to her son, expression fixed in place.  Her icicle-cool gaze seemed to pierce through the air.  “How odd,” she declared.  “Sherlock hardly ever misses anything.”  John fancied he heard a tone of reproach in her voice, though it was a bit hard to tell, since it seemed to be cloaked in the guise of mild surprise.

Sherlock huffed loudly beside him, which made John decide that his former assumption was probably true.  Mummy stood up from her chair and glided towards John, taking the items from him.  “Thank you, John,” she said.  “I shall put them in my room with the rest of Patrick’s things.  Help yourself to breakfast.  There are muffins.”

John glanced to the counter.  There were more than muffins.  It was overflowing with pancakes, syrup, Belgian waffles, bacon, ham, bangers, scrambled eggs, stacks of toast, five pots of different jams, coffee, tea, orange juice, donuts, and porridge.

“Wow, um.”

“ _It begins_ ,” Sherlock remarked darkly, with narrowed eyes.

John was momentarily overwhelmed with indecision.  Sherlock simply went forward and poured himself a cup of coffee, drowned it with sugar, and carried it to the table.  As John hesitantly started to fill his plate with a little of everything, Mummy Holmes came back into the room and sat across from her son.

John cleared his throat and said, “This is all—lovely—Mum, but all this really isn’t that necessary.”

She shrugged.  “I made the muffins.  The _domovyye_ supplied the rest.  They are anxious to please you, John.  It’s been many years since they have seen a new face.”

John bit into a piece of toast and swallowed.  “Well, that’s terribly nice of them, but I don’t need _this_ much.”

“I’ll be sure to inform them,” she replied, then stood up.  “You have forgotten your beverage, John.  Coffee or tea?”

John set down his fork and half stood up.  “No, it’s all right, I’ll get it.”

She ignored him and retrieved a cup of tea, placing it on John’s left.  “It is no trouble,” she stated, then turned to her son and placed a hand on his cheek, subtly setting a muffin in front of him.

Sherlock blinked and looked up at her.

A smile flashed across her face.  “You resemble your Grandfather Frost,” she said.  “Though he favoured the blue, rather than the black.”[5]

John smiled and privately thought Sherlock looked like a vampire.

“John thinks I look like a vampire,” Sherlock declared.

John bit into his mouthful of eggs hard, teeth clashing against the fork.  Sherlock’s mum raised both her eyebrows and smiled for slightly more than a second, then tilted her head and remarked, “You would make a very handsome vampire, Sherlock.”

“Okay, you could _not_ have possibly deduced that,” John said, after he’d swallowed.

“Of course not, John.  I heard it,” Sherlock replied.  He pushed the muffin towards John.  “Limited omniscience, remember?”

John stared at him and simply thought, _No_.

“Yes,” Sherlock countered.

“Okay, no, that is not on, Sherlock.  Don’t do that,” John said, feeling a growing sense of unease.  It was bad enough that Sherlock could read his mind just by deducing him; the last thing he needed was for Sherlock to _actually_ cross that barrier into a full, creepy awareness of John’s every thought.

“Well, I can try, John, but I can’t make any promises,” Sherlock replied, taking a swig of his coffee.  “I don’t think it’s something I can just turn on and off.”

Mummy Holmes had re-taken her seat and was watching them carefully.  “It certainly makes for more interesting conversations with one’s spouse,” she remarked. 

John’s brain paused on the word ‘spouse,’ paranoia making him think she’d stressed the word slightly, but then he dismissed it for what it was, irrational suspicion brought on by Sherlock literally reading his mind.  Then he looked at her again and thought he saw a subtle sliver of _knowing_ in her eyes when she looked at him, and he remembered warily that not only was she Mycroft’s mother, but that at one point in time she hadn’t been human.  Who even knew if her mind worked in the same way as a mortal’s at all?

She looked to Sherlock.  “Some days your father and I would go an entire day without needing to speak to one another, remember?”

Sherlock made an assenting noise through a sip of coffee and said, “At first Mycroft and I thought you’d learnt to blink in code at each other.  Wasted an entire afternoon trying to translate your blinking.”

John smiled at the mental image, and he continued eating his breakfast as the table fell into a peaceable silence.  At one point, Mrs. Holmes crossed her arms and stared at her son, who’d begun to drum his fingers on the wooden surface.

“You are not eating,” she observed.

“No.”

John quietly looked between them.  They seemed to be locked in a staring competition, eyes trying to cut into each other.  Sherlock narrowed his eyes slightly.  She tilted her head a little.

John wondered if they were reading each other’s minds.  He knew Sherlock had definitely acquired some sort of telepathy, but he had no idea if Sherlock’s mum might just... _naturally_ have that ability.  The thought that she might distinctly worried him.  It was bad enough having Sherlock reading all his thoughts, he didn’t need Sherlock’s _mother_ in there, too.

“She doesn’t,” Sherlock answered.  “She’s just a very good guesser.”

Mummy raised both eyebrows at him.

Sherlock frowned.  “Do you?” he asked.

“I find it more advantageous for you not to know either way.”

Sherlock squinted at her.  She started humming Tchaikovsky’s _Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy_.

Sherlock sighed.  “ _Touché, Madame_ ,” he rumbled, taking another swig from his mug.

Her bluish lips lifted up for a moment and held.

John hadn’t the faintest idea what the hell had just happened, but he was entertained nonetheless.  Sherlock drained the rest of his coffee.  When John had polished off the last of his breakfast, Sherlock stood up and let out a soft groan.

“Let’s get on with it,” he said, turning with a dramatic _swish_ of his coat toward the door.

“Already?” John said, nevertheless getting up and following.  “It’s not yet noon even.”

Mrs. Holmes was also following along, walking level with John.  “There is more work to be done before the evening,” she explained.  “Sherlock has to sort the gifts.”

“ _Sort_ them?” John asked incredulously.  “ _All_ of them?  Isn’t that usually done...well, by the elves or something?”

They had reached the atrium, where Sherlock turned to go down a corridor marked with a bow overhead.

Mummy shook her head slowly and said, “The presents for the children are all made ahead of time, as per the children’s requests in letters.  However, Sherlock is in charge of the List.  He has to sift out the gifts that will not be delivered by reason of bad behaviour, as well as to direct whether they will be couriered via fireplace or sleigh.”

“Fireplace?” John queried.

“The same method by which you arrived here, John,” she explained.  “For buildings that contain a fireplace, it is easier to transfer in and out of the homes directly through a fire portal opened by magic ashes.  The reindeer sleigh is for homes that do not possess such a structure, and that journey composes the latter half of the evening.”

John absorbed this for a moment and decided it made just about as much sense as anything else in this place.  “So there’s really kids who don’t get gifts because they’ve been bad?”

Mrs. Holmes smiled a little.  “They receive socks,” she replied.  “The lost gifts are then re-gifted.”

There were open doorways leading into rooms where elves were busy wrapping up gifts in glossy paper, sticking on bows, curling ribbons, and attaching nametags.  The end of the corridor led into a massive, warehouse-style room, which held a large stockpile of small presents and little goody bags filled with sweets beside an enormous fireplace.  A herd of elves were standing in line next to the presents.

On entering the room, the elves called out, “Greetings, Master Sherlock!   _Zdravstvuj,_ _Matushka_!  Greetings, John Watson!”

“You’ve _already_ greeted me,” Sherlock grumbled as John awkwardly said, “Uh, hello.”  Mummy simply inclined her head.

Sherlock walked directly to the crackling fireplace and turned sharply to face the room, coat whirling a little to fall back in place around his heels—John suspected that Sherlock was developing a vain attachment to the extra element of dramatics the winterized Belstaff had acquired.  At Sherlock’s sudden, brief glare in his direction, John also suspected that Sherlock had heard that thought.

Sherlock’s posture became impossibly straighter, and he placed his hands behind his back, forming an imposing dark figure against the backdrop of the red-orange flames.  “Shall we begin?” he inquired, sounding far more sinister than Father Christmas had a right to.

“Yes, Master Sherlock!”

Sherlock whipped out his hands and held them out in front of him, as though holding open an invisible book.  “ _Start_ ,” he declared, voice resonating through the room as his eyes turned to gold.

 

* * *

 

[5] Contrary to what you might expect, Santa/Father Christmas-esque figures don’t all wear red!  Over the centuries, they’ve come in a variety of different colours, from green to blue to brown to grey to even purple!  The red coat largely came about from two different things:

  1. Primarily, syncretism of other similar pagan figures with Saint Nicholas, who is sometimes depicted wearing a red cape or chasuble over a bishop’s white alb.  Why red?  Truth be told, I’m not exactly sure why—red is usually only worn during specific liturgical seasons which don’t normally coincide with Christmas or Advent.  My theories on that are: 

a. Since St. Nicholas was the Bishop of Lycia (a region in modern day Turkey), he might be more associated with the Eastern Orthodox Churches, who have slightly different liturgical color codes, and the Nativity Fast is associated with red (though oddly, not the Nativity itself).  Then somehow this got carried over to Western Europe?

b. The red color might actually be a carry-over from some other pagan winter figure, though I’m not sure which one.

c. We mistook purple (which is worn during Advent) for red?




         d. WE JUST LIKED THE RED.

     2.  Secondarily, COCA-COLA.  Although the red-robed Santa _was_ popular and existed long before Coca-Cola came along and decided to adopt him, they have to be given at least a little bit of credit for pretty much cementing the image and then spreading that specific image worldwide.

But even so, you can still find Father Christmases of many different colour coats throughout the world—in some parts of the UK, for example, he can still be seen in green (fun fact: The Ghost of Christmas Present, who is typically depicted as wearing a green robe and a crown of holly, is meant to resemble older depictions of Father Christmas).  In Slavic countries, you sometimes see either blue or red-robed Grandfather Frosts, etc.

  

 

_"Such a dazzling coat of many colours!  How I love my coat of many colours!"_

(Check out Ded Moroz/Grandfather Frost in the upper right.  IS HE PIMPIN' OR WHAT?  He's my favourite.)

(P.S.  The purple-coated Santa is riding a "motorized bicycle" in a postcard from 1911.  I want you to know this because it's hilarious.)

 

Sherlock, for his part, is likely unconsciously adopting black for two reasons:

  1. He’s not in the mood for bright primary colours.  He’s actually never in the mood for bright primary colours.  He just doesn’t like bright primary colours because he has to look dramatic and shadowy.
  2. He considers himself more in line with the “darker” figures of Christmas, such as [Père Fouettard](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pere_fouettard) (Fr., lit: “Father Whipper”), who go around punishing misbehaving children by presumably whipping them or leaving them coal (though modern updates probably don’t go quite that far).  Other such “dark” figures include the [Krampus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus), [Zwarte Piet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwarte_Piet), [Knecht Ruprecht](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knecht_Ruprecht), and [Belsnickel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belsnickel).  Hey, he's a crime fighter of sorts, after all--he's more interested in catching bad guys than rewarding good people.




	5. St. Nicholas Eve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N** : Just a quick note to say that there will be a brief conversation in Dutch in this chapter. Do not panic. It will be translated at the end of the chapter. However, do me a favour and don't look to see what they're saying until the end.
> 
> P.S. ~~If there's anyone out there who speaks Dutch, PLEASE feel free to correct it, as I do not speak Dutch.~~ **Many thanks to Elisabeth from Holland for improving the Dutch!!! (Updated April 10)**
> 
>  **Awards** : It's been decided by a quorum of three that The Ghost of Christmas Present is Totally a Sexy Bear. Congratulations, everyone, I'm now definitely going to be doing something with that which I hadn't thought of before and I think you will like it. This is what happens when you indulge me with comments. YOU CHANGE THE FUTURE. Thank you, darlings. ;-)

“Aafjes, Aart!” declared an elf closest to Sherlock, while holding a gift in his hands.

“Yes, fire.”

The elf scurried to place the small box at the other end of the room, close to the fireplace, before going back to the end of the queue.

“Aafjes, Doutzen!” declared the next elf, a female.

“No, fire.”

The elf jogged to the room’s entrance and handed the gift off to a male elf waiting outside, who gave her socks in return.  John watched as the elf who now had the gift tossed it into a side room, presumably storage, before running to the other side of the hallway and picking up a new pair of socks from within another room, coming to stand at attention at the entrance once more.  The socks for Doutzen Aafjes were placed next to the wrapped gift for Aart Aafjes, and the elf took her place back in line.

John glanced back at the entrance to ponder the fact that there were actually three different elves standing there.  There was Sock Elf and also two elves standing in front of two wagons.  John assumed the latter might be Sleigh Elves, and his suspicions were quickly confirmed as Sherlock went down the list of names and at some point designated a treat bag of oranges and nuts as “Yes, sleigh,” only to have said treat bag placed in one of the waiting wagons.  There were probably two of them so that when one of the wagons got full, the other could hold the fort while the full one was carted off to wherever the sleigh was.

“God, this is going to take forever,” John said, eyeing the mountain of presents.

Mrs. Holmes nodded.  “It does take time.”  She gestured to a small bench at the back of the room, and they made their way over to sit down and watch Sherlock read off verdicts and designations while occasionally turning an invisible page.  “Though it is not quite as insurmountable as it seems for this round,” she said.  “The gifts you see before you are largely going to certain regions of the European continent, to children who still believe in the gift-giver.”

“It’s still...a lot,” John said.  “I can’t imagine how much worse Christmas Eve will be.”

“Sherlock will begin the designation process for Christmas Eve long before the day of.  The next few weeks will not be spent in idleness, John Watson,” she said, and it was in that same grave tone John had heard before— _you will be getting to know each other better_ —that put John on edge.  But before John could take the time to consider whether or not Sherlock’s mum was possibly some kind of vaguely menacing oracle, she went on, “In the days of old, The Obligation used to be much simpler.  The tradition was mostly confined to Europe, with fewer people, fewer options of gifts to choose from.  The growth of the world has created more demands for each consecutive gift-giver.”

John looked at the spidery assembly line of moving gifts and at Sherlock standing ramrod straight in front of the fire.  “Shouldn’t I be doing something?” he asked.  “I’d like to help.”

Mummy considered this.  “You could join in the assembly line if you choose.  However, I believe Sherlock will be expecting you to assist with the delivery, which will take all night.  It might be wiser to conserve your energy until then.”

Which was a fair point.  “It’s just...then what am I even doing here?” he asked.

She flickered a smile at him.  “You are keeping him company.  Unpleasant tasks become easier to manage in the presence of a friend.”

“What are _you_ doing here, then?” John asked, then realised his gaffe.  “Not that—not that I don’t think Sherlock doesn’t like you or anything.  You seem to get along well with each other.”

“I am keeping _you_ company, John,” she replied, and for a moment, John thought her hair had taken on a golden hue—but it was likely just because of the firelight.  “Sherlock does not bring home friends—you are the singular exception.  I find myself inquisitive.”

John smiled at her.  “What do you want to know?”

She asked him about his blog, which she’d never been able to see for herself (the North Pole lacking Internet), and John did his best to describe what it was like, how he got started doing it, and the conversation gradually flowed into John recounting some of the cases he’d helped Sherlock with.  Approximately an hour or two later, an elf named Holly trotted up to them with a plate of shortbread, which John took gratefully and dove into with relish.

John in turn asked Mrs. Holmes for stories about Sherlock growing up, which she seemed content enough to relate, lingering on such hilarious points as Mycroft’s first reaction to seeing his new baby brother (“Mummy, can’t we take him back?”), Sherlock’s knack for bringing various insects and rodents and toads into the house, and, with a hint of pride in her voice, how Sherlock won his first science fair at the age of six.  If Sherlock heard any of the conversation (which John rather doubted, since he was busy at the moment being semi-mythical), he did not seem to care.

John glanced at his watch.  It was half two.  “It’s been nearly six hours since he started,” John said with some concern.  “Is he close to done yet?  He should take a break.  Or hydrate, at the least.”

From the sound of it, Sherlock appeared to be in the V’s.  He was still standing perfectly straight, arms held out in front of him, with eyes glowing as he designated gifts in a sonorous tone.  The elves, on the other hand, were looking a bit wilted.

John looked to the shortbread plate to contemplate offering a few to Sherlock or the elves, only to realise that the plate still looked...surprisingly full.  He furrowed his eyebrows at it in confusion.

“The plate refills on its own, John,” Mummy said, noting where he was looking.

John felt a small twinge of embarrassment.  “Oh god, how many have I eaten, then?”

“Twelve.”

“Sherlock was definitely not kidding about the sweets,” John said sheepishly, picking up the plate.

“I shall acquire some tea,” Mummy stated, getting up from her spot on the bench and exiting the room.

John carried the plate over to Sherlock and stood next to him until the next available gap in names.  “Sherlock.”

At first, Sherlock ignored him, answering “No, sleigh,” to the next name read.  He turned an invisible page.

“Sherlock,” John tried again, placing a hand on Sherlock’s elbow.

Sherlock blinked and suddenly sagged, stumbling backwards and nearly into the fireplace if not for John’s quick one-armed catch.

“Whoa, whoa, easy now, Sherlock.”  John made sure Sherlock was secure on his feet before holding up the biscuit plate and saying, “You’ve been at it for six hours straight; I think you need a break.  Or at least some tea, at any rate.”

Sherlock glowered at him.  “I was doing _fine_ , John, you didn’t have to interrupt.  I don’t _need_ a break.”

John turned his head toward the elves, who were drooping and slightly out of breath.  “If not you, then I think _they_ need a break,” he said gently.

Sherlock cast his eyes across the room.  “Very well,” he declared, and there was a chorus of relieved sighs as the elves immediately dropped to the floor.  He waved off John’s proffered plate of biscuits.

“Go sit down for a minute,” John told him, instead taking his plate around the room and urging the elves to take a handful each.  “Sorry,” he murmured to them, “I should’ve thought to make him stop sooner.  I’ll make sure it won’t happen again the next time.”

The elves tiredly chirped their thanks and munched into the biscuits.  Turning back to Sherlock, John saw that he had drifted over to sit on the bench, his unfocused eyes gazing into nothing.  John sat beside him and held the plate under his nose.

“You really need to eat something, Sherlock.  You look exhausted.”

Sherlock sighed and relented, picking up a shortbread and stuffing it into his mouth, chewing loudly and getting crumbs everywhere.  He swallowed thickly.  “I think,” he croaked, “the magical field is depleting my energy reserves faster than normal.”

“That sounds like something a magical field would do,” John concurred, having no idea what he was talking about.

At that moment, Mummy returned with a tea trolley, containing one overwhelmingly large teapot in the shape of a swan, several festive teacups and spoons, sugar, a small pot of milk, and a plate of gingerbread men.  The elves cheered.  She distributed tea and gingerbread, saving John and Sherlock for last.  Sherlock bit off the gingerbread man’s head with unnecessary viciousness.  John gave him his own biscuit silently and sipped at his tea, which seemed to be a regular English Breakfast sort of tea, but with a spot of cinnamon and cloves mixed in.  It tasted heavenly.

He was halfway through his cuppa when there was a loud shatter, and John felt a head collide into his shoulder.  He jumped.  “Sherlock?!” he said, setting his tea to one side and eyeing the shards of Sherlock’s teacup at his feet.  “Sherlock, you okay?”

The only response he got was a soft snore.

He looked to Sherlock’s mother seated on his other side.  ‘Is he asleep?’ he mouthed.

She nodded.  A few of the elves giggled and made “aww” sounds.  John felt his cheeks warm, but he determinedly kept his expression stoic.  “What should we do?” he whispered to Mrs. Holmes, who’d bent down to pick up shards and mop up tea with a serviette.

She scrutinised her son’s sleeping face.  “Give him twenty minutes,” she whispered back.  “He looks like he did not sleep last night.”  Considering that John had guessed the same earlier that morning, having Mummy Holmes say the same practically confirmed it.  She placed the shards on the tea trolley and gathered the empty teacups from around the room before carting off the lot.

Sherlock started to drift downwards, and John quickly manoeuvred an arm around him to keep him in place.  He was perfectly comfortable acting as Sherlock’s emergency shoulder pillow, but not so much an accidental thigh pillow—that would be a bit not good.  Regardless of John’s honourable intentions, an elfish cooing resulted from John securing an arm around Sherlock and readjusting his flatmate’s head on his shoulder, and John had to stubbornly remind himself that it frankly did not _matter_ how it looked to anyone else.  Sherlock, for his part, made matters worse by unconsciously muttering his name and burrowing into John’s neck.  John simply sighed and put up with it.

He was fairly certain that Sherlock was drooling on his jumper a little, which honestly didn’t bother him all that much—it was better than being bled on, so it was actually a bit of a nice change.  Sherlock’s soft snores were probably the most human thing John had ever witnessed in the man, and it occurred to him that he rarely ever _saw_ Sherlock sleeping—he could count the instances on one hand, and considering that they were _flatmates_ , it seemed like an alarmingly low number.  John caught himself rubbing a thumb idly against Sherlock’s arm and stopped.  The brush of Sherlock’s lamb-soft snowy curls against his jaw and neck was a pleasant and foreign sensation, and for some reason it made John feel painfully self-consciousness, forcing him to sit straighter and stiller.

John relaxed a little when Mrs. Holmes came back—until she paused, flashed a brief smile, and held up her hands so that they formed L shapes from her indexes and thumbs.  She seemed to zoom in and out before she stilled, then deliberately blinked.  John looked at her in complete mystification.

“I took a mental picture,” she stated.  “It shall be a pleasant addition to Sherlock’s photograph album.”

 _Oh god_ , John thought, _that’s where he gets it from._   He imagined it—a vast collection of photo albums, categorised neatly in chronological or alphabetical order, with its curator having as much ease of access to every little photograph as Sherlock did with criminal facts in his Mind Palace.  Considering that she was much older than her son, Mrs. Holmes probably had more knowledge stored in her head than Sherlock, even.  The thought was a bit alarming, but at the same time, John couldn’t help but smile—her version of the technique was such a _mum_ thing to do.

“Should we wake him?” he murmured, turning his head slightly to Sherlock.

“I am afraid so,” she stated.  “There is work yet to be done.  However, Sherlock is very resilient.”

John gently jostled Sherlock’s arm.  “Sherlock, hey.  Sherlock, wake up, you’ve got Father Christmas things to do.”

Sherlock snorted and slurred, “Dzjohn?”  Then he quite abruptly tensed.  Before John could blink, Sherlock was up and out of John’s arms and stalking toward the fireplace.  He swivelled and faced the elves.  “Are you ready?” he asked gruffly.

“Yes, Master Sherlock!” said the elves, scrambling to their feet.

“ _Begin_ ,” he intoned, arms rising to their invisible book-reading position.

The process line cranked back into functioning, and John slowly blinked a few times.  Though Sherlock had gone back into his glowy-eyed trancelike state, there was still a lingering tinge of pink on his cheeks.  Mummy Holmes settled next to John.

“Both of my sons have always been reluctant to show weakness,” she said, then furrowed her brows slightly.  “Perhaps in no small part due to my own limitations.”  She nodded towards Sherlock.  “I expect he is embarrassed.  Though the fact that he shows it at all in front of you, John, is exceedingly curious.”

There it was again, that slight maybe-there-maybe-not-there emphasis, this time on the word ‘curious.’  She’d said something like it before, in regards to John’s singular capacity as Sherlock’s friend—she’d said she was _inquisitive_.  He sent her a wary look.  “Is it really all that strange?” he asked.

She turned to him with an unnerving stare, the blue of her irises almost white.  John was beginning to suspect that he was never going to get used to it.  “Stranger than a room full of mythical beings in the Arctic?  ...Perhaps not,” she said, turning back to watch Sherlock.

John cleared his throat a bit, muttered a quiet, “Right then,” then excused himself to find the nearest toilet.  It’d been over six hours, after all, and god knows if he’d get another chance later.

***

He’d managed to get lost on the way there, but thankfully the passing elves were happy enough to direct him where he needed to go.  By the time he returned to the gift-sorting room (which he _did_ manage to find on his own), Sherlock was in the W’s.

He sat down again next to Mrs. Holmes and fidgeted.

“It should not be long now,” she said.

“I know,” John replied, looking from Sherlock to the elves.  He twiddled his thumbs.  He sucked his lips between his teeth.  He crossed a leg.  Making his mind up, he stood and went to the back of the queue.

Glancing back where Mrs. Holmes was sitting, he saw that she’d raised a single appraising eyebrow, and he sort of shrugged.  “Couldn’t hurt to help a bit near the end,” he said.

But when it came to his turn, he looked down at the nametag on the treat bag he was holding and realised he’d made a terrible mistake.  “Ah...” he started, then tried to soldier on anyways.  “Vern...higher?  Vern-he-er?  ...Chlod...wig?”

The elves behind him burst out laughing.  Sherlock, for his part, looked profoundly puzzled for a moment, then he blinked and the gold disappeared from his eyes.  He looked over and immediately rolled his eyes when he saw John.  “John, sit down, you’re utterly useless to me right now.”

“Um, sorry,” John muttered, awkwardly holding out the bag to him.

Sherlock swiped it, glanced at the name, and read out ‘Wirnhier, Chlodwig’ in effortless German.  His eyes flashed gold once more, and he fell back into position.  “Yes, sleigh,” he intoned.

“Right, I’ll just...” John said, shuffling away to deposit the bag into one of the waiting wagons.  The Sleigh Elves and the Sock Elf sniggered at him.  “Oh, piss off,” he muttered, then sulkily took his seat next to Sherlock’s mum again.  She looked faintly amused.

“Well, that’s enough embarrassment for one day,” he said with a sigh.

“One can only hope,” she replied lightly.

They waited out the rest of the alphabet, which seemed to pass by mercifully fast—either the elves had gained a second wind on realising how close they were, or there really weren’t as many names clustered near the end.  When the last elf brought up the last gift and read out the name, Sherlock declared, “No, sleigh,” and slapped his hands together, the normal hue of his eyes instantly restored.  A cheer rang out as the gift was exchanged for socks, and the wagon was carted away—even John couldn’t help clapping.

Sherlock stalked over and threw himself onto the bench between John and Mummy.  “What time is it?” he demanded.

John checked his watch.  “Almost five,” he replied, shocked at how the time had flown.

Sherlock grunted and mumbled, “Still have a few hours then.”

“Dinner will be ready,” Mummy said, standing up.  “You should eat, Sherlock.”

“ _No_ ,” Sherlock moaned at her.  He rubbed at his head with the heel of his hand.  “The dining hall is loud and the food is heavy.  I’ll get biscuits on the rounds tonight.”

“Well, I could go for a bite,” John said, hoping to entice Sherlock to come along.

Sherlock just glared at him.  “Fine.  _Go._   Just leave me in peace,” he spat, waving them away.

John hesitantly got up and started to follow Mummy Holmes out of the room, glancing back to where Sherlock was sprawled across the bench, with one leg drooped over the backrest and an elbow over his eyes, scowling.

“Is he okay?” he murmured to her as they came into the atrium and turned right.

She shrugged.

In spite of all that, John found he didn’t have much of an appetite—he was mostly nervous about what would happen that night, and a part of him couldn’t help thinking that there was something not quite right with Sherlock.  It wasn’t as though Sherlock _didn’t_ have moments where he deliberately shut everyone out to get some space; John was fairly used to that.  But falling asleep in the middle of a job and nearly falling into a fireplace definitely weren’t normal—not for Sherlock.  Forgetting his own age wasn’t really that normal.  Relapsing into smoking was _definitely_ normal, but it usually only happened when Sherlock was stressed.  Sherlock knew his limits, ridiculously unrealistic though they were, and if he crossed them (usually by accident), he generally knew to ask for help.

But Sherlock wasn’t asking for help—not from John, nor from his mother—and John couldn’t tell if it was because Sherlock actually knew what he was doing or if it was because he was so far out of his depth he didn’t even realise it.  That uncertainty, more than anything, nagged at John like a relentless cold sore.

When he and Mummy Holmes came back to the gift room, they found Sherlock pacing the floor.  But before John could say anything, Sherlock snapped, “Let’s get this over with” and picked up a large metal pot resting to one side of the fireplace, dumping its contents into the flames.  A heavy spill of glittering ash fell in, and the fire roared up.

Sherlock dropped the pot aside with a resounding clang and turned to John.  “We’ll start with the Aafjes,” he said, picking up Aart’s wrapped gift and twiddling it in the air.  “Come on, John.”  He stepped into the fire and disappeared.

John scrambled forward, remembered to grab the socks for Doutzen, and, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes, went running through the fire.

He was caught by the back of his jumper and pulled to one side, Sherlock’s hand fastening over his mouth.  “For god’s sakes, John,” Sherlock hissed into his ear.  “We’re breaking and entering, not crashing the circus.  _Try_ for some subtlety.”

John opened his eyes and saw that they were standing in a cosy Dutch living room and, to his horror, he realised that there were voices coming from another room.  “There’s still people awake,” he whispered.

“That’s why we move quickly,” Sherlock murmured, releasing John from his grip.  He turned, located Aart’s shoe beside the fireplace, stuffed the gift in it, and went back through the fire.

John blinked and stuffed the socks down Doutzen’s shoe, briefly reflected on the bland appropriateness of putting _socks_ in a _shoe_ , and then he was pulled back into the flames by Sherlock’s hand, which had reached through and grabbed him.

“Speed _is_ of the essence, John, do keep up,” Sherlock said, picking up a treat bag as the fire briefly flickered and roared back up.  “Triplets, get the next two,” he snapped, stepping in.

John fumbled for the next bags and followed him, arriving in the new living room just as Sherlock backed out again.  He stuffed the small bags into two vastly undersized shoes and turned around.

“Single child,” Sherlock stated, waltzing in and out of the fire in a second, then swooping up an armful of presents.  “Orphanage!”  He stepped through again.

John paused, unsure how many he was supposed to bring, and just started picking up some.  Mrs. Holmes picked up two extra and stuffed them into his arms.  “Ta,” he said, ducking into the fire.

Sherlock was on the other side, shoving presents into thin stockings.  When John came through, he took some from John and immediately continued distributing them.

“So, you okay then?” John asked.

“Shut up, working.”

They both heard a gasp behind them and turned to see a white-robed nun standing at the entrance of what appeared to be a large dining hall, a hand over her mouth.  “ _Run_ ,” Sherlock hissed, knocking the rest of the gifts out of John’s hands and running into the fire.  The nun gasped again and crossed herself.  John looked down at the gifts scattered across the floor, then at the shocked and actually rather pretty nun, said, “Uh, Happy Christmas, or whatever this is,” with a sheepish grin and ran back through.

“John, don’t flirt with the nuns, they’re celibate for a _reason_ ,” Sherlock hissed when he returned.  He shoved an enormous stuffed unicorn into John’s arms, holding onto two pairs of socks himself.

“I wasn’t,” John retorted.  They’d entered another family living room, where Sherlock was putting the socks into two shoes helpfully labelled _Emiel_ and _Mathis_.  “I was just wishing her a Happy Christmas.”

Sherlock snorted.  “Limited omniscience, John.”  He took the unicorn from John, plopped it near a Christmas tree, and then grabbed _Camille_ ’s shoe from the floor and hooked it neatly on the unicorn’s horn.  “You’d do well to remember that.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not exactly going to let me forget it, are you?” John replied, walking back with him into the fire.

It took John awhile, but with Mummy Holmes helping to make sure John got the right presents, he and Sherlock soon fell into a hurried but synchronised rhythm, delivering most of the gifts in complete silence.  It was slightly disorienting, constantly moving back and forth, and after some time John was starting to feel out of breath and a touch vertiginous.  Sherlock, on the other hand, showed no signs of slowing—if anything, he seemed to have become even more jittery.

“Can we stop a minute?” John gasped, after they’d returned from a packed house of young cousins and grandkids.

“ _No_ ,” Sherlock snarled at him, and he looked so livid that for a moment John was struck speechless.

“It was just a suggestion,” he said quietly, then a bit more firmly, “No need to bite my head off about it.”

“Well we can’t _all_ spend hours on our arses all day eating _biscuits_ , now can we?” Sherlock sneered, swiping a treat bag and passing through the flames.

John’s mouth dropped open.  _That_  was completely uncalled for.  He grabbed the next gift that Mummy Holmes held out to him and stormed after Sherlock.  “Sherlock, _what the hell?_ ” he hissed, shoving the gift into a stocking without looking.

“ _Shut up_ , John!” Sherlock hissed back.  “Do you not know the meaning of ‘be quiet, we’re breaking and entering’?”  He turned sharply back into the fire.

John passed through the portal and grabbed his arm, hard.  “ _No._   No.  We are stopping this _now_ , Sherlock.  What is your problem all of a sudden?  Do you want me to help or don’t you?”

Sherlock wrenched his arm away.  “My _problem_ , John, is that we still have half of the presents to deliver in this room, _and_ a sleighful in another room, _and_ that we’re running on a very tight schedule, so we don’t have time to lollygag and take breaks for tea or blather on about _feelings_.  _Keep.  Up._ ”  He’d nearly turned back into the fire when suddenly Mummy Holmes loomed over her son and snagged his face in place.

In general, John was a bit intimidated by Mrs. Holmes, but everything before was nothing compared to that instant—her long-fingered hands had fastened over Sherlock’s ears, and she was staring straight down into his eyes unblinkingly, irises turned solid white.  The entire room seemed to still—even the sound of the fire crackling had become muffled.  Sherlock looked like he’d been caught in headlights; he dropped the gift he was holding to the floor.

John shivered and saw his breath rise in a cloud of steam.

“Son,” she said, after a minute of silence.

Sherlock blinked, then scowled.  “Mother, get off.”

“ _Son_ ,” she said again, in a deeper, hypnotic tone, sounding strangely far away.  “You are not behaving rationally.  You have no cause to mistreat your guest in this manner.”

Sherlock simply waved off her hands and said, “I’m being perfectly rational, Mother, now let me get on with this godforsaken business.”  He stooped, picked up the dropped present, and without another word stepped through the fire.

Mrs. Holmes looked to John, a crease forming between her eyebrows.  “I am concerned,” she said.

“Yeah, me too,” John agreed, grabbing the gift she handed to him and following Sherlock.

His flatmate was standing near a darkened window in a rather stark living room.  John quietly deposited the small present into its tattered shoe and checked his watch.  Almost 11, at least by London time—who knew what time it was wherever they were standing.  “Hey,” John said quietly.  “C’mon, we’re partners in this.  Tell me what’s up.”

Sherlock sighed and shook his head.  He held his hands behind his back and seemed to be looking down at something from the window.  “So this is one of them,” he muttered vacantly.

“Hm?” John encouraged.

“Not now, John,” Sherlock said after a moment, turning away from the window and coming back to the fire.  “There is work to be done.”

As he passed by, John caught a glimpse of the expression on his face—it was utterly blank: a deadened look of resignation, the shut-down mask that John had seen on the rare occasions where Sherlock had known he’d failed but refused to admit it.  Like the death of the old blind woman.  Or the first death of Irene Adler.

But nothing had gone wrong so far.  Sherlock hadn’t failed anything.  Aside from him getting upset over nothing and having weird mood swings, things were actually going pretty swimmingly.  What could’ve possibly gotten him into such a black mood?  John looked to the window, where it appeared to be raining, wherever they were.  Was it something he’d seen out there?  John hesitated, took a step towards it, but was stopped by the sound of Sherlock’s voice coming through the portal—“Hurry up, John.  We need to move on.”  He reluctantly returned to the North Pole side, letting the fire swallow up whatever mystery lay beyond that distant rain-spattered window.

Sherlock seemed to have calmed down since his mother had confronted him, but he went about the next series of rounds in a subdued manner, as though moving through molasses—the harried energy from before had evaporated.  John moved carefully around him, unsure whether it would be better to try to break the bubble Sherlock had formed around himself or let him be for the moment.  They worked in awkward silence, the pile of socks and presents dwindling, the fire roaring, their footsteps brushing against the stone floor and lightly echoing.

At last, the silence broke as they were delivering to another tiny Dutch living room, at the sound of a soft squeak.  John looked over and saw a girl, maybe about seven years old, coming out from behind a doorway.  She was staring at them, wide-eyed, clutching a stuffed rabbit in her arms.  John smiled at her.

“Sherlock, we’ve got company,” he whispered.

“Ignore her,” Sherlock mumbled.

“ _Sinterklaas?_ ” said the girl.

Sherlock said nothing; he simply paused, then pulled out a chocolate letter[6] from somewhere in the depths of his coat and put it in the girl’s shoe.  He turned to go into the fire.

The girl bolted forward and grabbed his sleeve.  “ _Sinterklaas!_ ”

John jumped and Sherlock started, looking down at her wordlessly.

“ _Sinterklaas, heb je Papa meegebracht_ _?_ [7]” she asked.

Sherlock blinked, lips parted slightly, then set his mouth in a firm line and looked away from her.  “ _Nee_ ,” he replied.

“ _Maar ik wilde hem zo graag terug!_ ” she pleaded, eyes tearing.

“ _Ïk kan niet elke wens verlenen_ ,” Sherlock said sternly, pulling his sleeve from her fingers.“ _Ga slapen!_ ”

John watched in horror as the girl started to sob.  Sherlock wrinkled his nose in distaste before escaping through the fire, leaving John behind with a crying child.  He dithered, unsure what to do or say to a young girl who didn’t speak his language, before he carefully placed a hand on her shoulder and said, “I’m so sorry” in the gentlest tone he could manage.  When she failed to show the slightest signs of cheering up, John sighed and chased after Sherlock.

To his shock, he came back to find Sherlock storming out of the gift room with sharp, loud footsteps.  His mother was gazing after him in complete confusion.  John felt hot, sour anger swarm over him.

“Sherlock, what the _fuck_ was that?  What the hell did you say to her?” he shouted, running towards him.  “ _Sherlock!_ ”  He grabbed Sherlock’s arm.  “Where are you going?!”

“I quit,” Sherlock snapped.

John blinked.  “ _What?_ ”

“I.  _Quit_ ,” Sherlock repeated, turning with a vicious glare.  His eyes were flashing wildly between green and gold.  “I am _walking away_ , John, I am resigning my post.  Done.  _Finito!_ ”

Sherlock pulled his arm away, but John caught it right back again.  “You can’t bloody well _quit_ , you’re Father Christmas!  We’ve still got a stack of presents to deliver and a world to fly around, as you’ve been bloody well harping at me all night!”

“And yet that is _exactly_ what I’m doing, John.  Now _let.  Go!_ ” he snarled, breaking his arm away again and whirling away without so much as a glance behind him.

John watched him go while he clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides, breathing harshly through his nose.  When Sherlock disappeared at a turn in the atrium, John nodded to himself and turned sharply back towards the gift room.  He stalked in as Mummy Holmes said, “What happened back there?”  She sent a meaningful look towards the fireplace.

John sighed and took a deep breath, still trying to calm down.  “I don’t know,” he said.  “I think they were speaking in Dutch.”  He frowned and closed his eyes a moment, trying to remember the jabble of foreign sounds and make sense of them.  He could only make sense of one word.  “There was a girl, I think she said something about her father.  Whatever Sherlock said to her made her cry, and then—”  He waved an arm vaguely in the direction Sherlock had gone.  “—this.”  He sighed again, shaking his head, and put his hands on his hips.

He looked to Mrs. Holmes.  She’d crossed her arms, frowning slightly.  “What do we do now?” he asked her.

She sighed in turn and mimicked his stance.  “We cannot do anything about the sleigh—only Sherlock can drive it—but we can still deliver the presents here on our own before dawn,” she said.

“Good,” John said.  It was something, anyway.  Something useful.  “Then let’s keep going.” 

 

* * *

 

[6] Dutch children traditionally receive chocolate letters of their initials on St. Nicholas Day--the neat thing about these letters is that in order for each letter to have an equal amount of chocolate, the manufacturers vary the thickness level of the letters (this way, people with names that start with something like 'M' don't have an unfair advantage over names that start with "J" or "I," etc.).  Behold:

...Looks rather big, doesn't it?  Now I want one... 

 

[7] Dutch: “Saint Nicholas, did you bring Daddy?”

                “No.”

                “But I wanted him back so much!”

                “I cannot grant every wish.  Go to sleep!"

                ( **Updated Apr 10) (Many thanks again, Elisabeth!)**

 

[8]  From what I've heard [bless you Silmanumenel], it may in fact be more common for people to place the shoes outside of doors rather than in front of fireplaces.  (...Whoops.)  However, let's just say that the ones that are left outside of doors are actually covered by the sleigh run.  Yeah, that sounds like a good loophole.  (I mean, not _everyone_ puts them outside, I'm assuming.  **ETA (Apr 10):** Though I've also heard from another reader--Ms. Elisabeth from Holland--that at least over there they do, in fact, put shoes in front of fireplaces.  I guess it depends on where you are where the shoes go!)


	6. St. Nicholas Day

John and Mummy Holmes delivered the rest of the gifts in the room at a methodical, temperate pace.  Luckily, it was late enough at night in the areas of the world they delivered to that there wasn’t much of a chance of them getting caught by curious children or lingering adults.  They worked together with ease—Mrs. Holmes took over the directive nature of the job, making sure they had the right number of presents going into each house and that the gifts were delivered into the correct shoes or stockings; John insisted on taking the bulk of the lifting and simply let her tell him where things were supposed to go.  It wasn’t the fastest job—not as fast as they’d been going with Sherlock—but they finished around two A.M., according to John’s watch.

They stood in the empty room and watched as the fire suddenly sputtered and fell to a normal-sized level.  John turned to Mrs. Holmes and stuck out a hand.  “Well done, Mrs. Holmes.”

She shook it, and John started, remembering too late that she was unnaturally cold.  “It is done, John, whether it was done ‘well’ is a matter of perspective,” she replied.  She looked towards the entrance.  “Especially considering the circumstances.”

John sighed and followed her gaze, his irritation with Sherlock simmering back up.  “God, and there’s still so many kids that won’t get anything.  I mean—”  He paused and rubbed a hand over his face.  “—I know there’s parents.  Most of them have parents, guardians, someone to handle that, to give them presents.  But some of them don’t.  And it just isn’t fair that...”

She placed a hand on his arm.  “I know, John.”

But John had already worked himself up.  “I’m going to find him.  This isn’t right and I’m going to find him and give him a piece of my mind,” he said, marching out the room with purpose.  Mummy Holmes didn’t even try to stop him.

It took him surprisingly little time to find Sherlock—generally, when Sherlock didn’t want to be found, there wasn’t a bloodhound alive that could track him down.  But all John had to do was step into the atrium and he was greeted by the faint smell of tobacco smoke.  His blood pressure spiked.  He followed the thin tendrils to the plumes issuing from the family living room, where Sherlock could be seen brooding in the haze, seated in the armchair by the fireplace with his father’s pipe between his teeth.

John went down into the room, coughing and lifting the hem of his jumper to cover his nose and mouth.  He stood beside Sherlock’s chair, glaring at him and waiting to be acknowledged, letting the jumper fall back down.  When Sherlock failed to even blink, John snagged the pipe from his teeth and threw it across the room.  Sherlock acknowledged him with a glower.

John clenched and unclenched his fists.  “ _Where the hell did you get that?_ ” he growled.  When Sherlock didn’t answer immediately, John raged on, “That pipe was in your _mother’s_ room, Sherlock, locked in there with the understanding that this wouldn’t happen again!”

“And you think I can’t pick my mother’s locks, for a room I once inhabited?” Sherlock replied.

“That’s not the bloody point!” John said, raising his hands in an aborted move to strangle his flatmate.  He unconsciously began to pace back and forth across the fireplace, then stopped abruptly.  “Your mother and I finished the rest of the gift room ourselves, Sherlock, we did _your_ job.  The job you’d _said_ you’d do.  The whole bloody _point_ of us being here!  And now you’re just walking out and leaving hundreds of kids heartbroken because you can’t be arsed to keep a single promise!”

He stood there, chest heaving, and when Sherlock failed to do anything but seethe at him, he snapped, “For god’s sake, I put up with a lot of your shit, Sherlock, and I do it because I’m your friend, but I _cannot_ stand by and let you ruin the one good thing a kid can count on!”

Sherlock stood up, all at once in John’s face.  “Why shouldn’t I?” he hissed.  “I’m doing them a _favour_.  The world isn’t a magical place where everything turns out right just because you _wish_ it.  You don’t _get_ everything you ask for just because you ask _nicely._   There is a world out there where strangers abduct the trusting little idiots because they are naive enough to believe that a friendly smile is enough to make a person good.  This whole business is a _farce_ , and if you care about them at all, John, you’ll damn well let them see the world _as it is!_ ”

John wasn’t even conscious of the fact that his fist had swung until he saw Sherlock holding his jaw with a grimace.  His knuckles stung.

“ _How dare you?_ ” John growled.  “You think I don’t know what hell the world is?  I’ve been in a bloody _war_ for fuck’s sake!  How _dare_ you think I don’t care?  Sherlock, there are kids out there that have _nothing_.  They don’t have parents, or, or _shoes_ , or _anything_.  Is it so much to give them _one_ thing, _one_ tiny miracle in their lives?!”

“ _Miracles_ ,” Sherlock said, curling his lip.  Suddenly he cringed, a hand coming up and clutching at his forehead.  He turned away from John and scraped his fingers through the mess of white curls.  “Miracles,” he said again, with a sigh.  He slowly walked to where the pipe had landed on the floor, picking it up and tapping the bowl against the palm of his other hand.  “That is the problem, isn’t it.”

John watched him carefully, some of the heat of his anger fading at the sight of Sherlock’s slumped, depressed posture, though lingering adrenaline still made him restless.  “This is about that girl, isn’t it?” John said.  “She said something about her father.”

Sherlock froze briefly.  “Klasina Van Der Laar, born 15 March 2005, proficient in maths and physical science, dislikes history, allergic to cats, currently being raised in a single parent home while her father is in prison.”

John blinked.  “You deduced all that?”

“Not all of it, no.”  Sherlock looked over his shoulder at John, turning sharply with a sneering wrinkle of his nose.  “You don’t _get_ it, do you?  When I say I’m currently omniscient, it is there, _constantly_ , every waking _second_.”  He stalked back to John and loomed.  “On an average day my mind is rocketing through every speck of dirt and dust, every wrinkle and frown line on human skin, every stain, every _crumb_ , every puzzle piece slotting together.  That is my mind, _alone_.  I have _over a billion_ people in it now, mucking everything up.  ‘What should I get my boyfriend for Christmas?  I wonder if Daddy will be home for my birthday?  I wish my son would call me more often.  I want a Smartphone, Mama, I WANT A SMARTPHONE There’s a spill on Aisle 3 That’s the jingle bell rock I love Christmas it’s the best time of the year with all the lights and the decorations and I fucking hate shopping I have to bake my son cookies for class tomorrow I’ll break up with her after New Year’s We can’t afford the food AND the heating Give to the Needy Have a Holly Jolly Christmas It’s bloody cold My sister’s a cunt He has a week at most Marry me Lindsay Congratulations it’s a boy Mrs. God Rest Ye Merry Rudolph the Snowman LetNothingYouDecktheFIVEGOLDEN—’”

“Sherlock!” John shouted, dashing forward and shaking him by the shoulders, alarmed at the Technicolor whirl flashing in Sherlock’s eyes.

Sherlock blinked and shook his head, pulling away from John’s hands.  “Now do you _see?_ ” he hissed.  “It’s all I can do not to lose my mind.”

John inhaled deeply through his nose and let his breath out slowly.  He repeated the process one more time.  “Fine.  You have a reason for acting like a moody git, Sherlock, but you still don’t have an excuse for walking out on this job.  You _knew_ going in what this would do—you’ve had Mycroft and your father to tell you what it’s like, and Mycroft wouldn’t bother making you do it if he thought you couldn’t.  _You_ wouldn’t accept the job if you didn’t _know_ you could do it—you’re the most self-assured man in existence and you want everyone to know it.  No, Sherlock, it’s something else and you _will_ tell me what it is.”

Sherlock gazed at him with tempered admiration, a touch of a smile insinuating at the corners of his mouth.  “Oh bravo, John, you’re improving,” he said.

John crossed his arms and raised both of his eyebrows.  “I’m waiting.”

Sherlock sighed and looked away again.  After a long moment of gazing into nothing, he said, “John, if you could grant twelve miracles to anyone on Earth, to whom would you give them?”

John furrowed his eyebrows.  “What?  Um, I don’t know, really.  Whoever deserves them, I guess.”

Sherlock gave him a withering look and idly tapped the tips of his fingernails against the wood of his father’s pipe.

“...You can grant miracles,” John said at last, in disbelief.

“Twelve.”

“Why only twelve?”

“How should I know?” Sherlock snapped, raising his hands briefly in the air in exasperation.  “Perhaps because there’s twelve months in a year, perhaps because there’s twelve days of Christmas, or perhaps whatever’s behind this phenomenon just _really_ likes the number twelve.”

John gawked.  “Sherlock, you don’t _believe_ in God!  Or in _miracles_ , for that matter.”

Sherlock waved his statement away.  “You are correct but that’s beside the matter, John, the point is that it’s _there_.  Just because science doesn’t have an explanation for it yet is irrelevant.  We’re at the North Pole in a commune full of _elves_ , for god’s sake.  Point being: The Obligation comes with the ability to nudge the circumstances in a person’s life in such a way that the result is beneficial.  Klasina asked me for one.  I denied it to her.”

“To get her dad out of prison?” John guessed.  “Couldn’t you just do that on your own, without the...miracle?  Or get Mycroft to pull some strings?”

Sherlock snorted.  “Oh no.  For one, her father very much deserves his place in that cell—my range of omniscience is _very_ clear on that matter.  Secondly, you vastly overestimate my brother’s generosity, John; he has no time or persuasion for such sentiment.  It would very much have to be a miracle to free him.  So why even consider it?  Well, it’s clear that the man does truly love his daughter, and she obviously misses him.  The question becomes, ‘Should a man who has committed a wrongdoing without remorse, yet who holds an honest and honourable tenderness for his offspring, be permitted freedom, because his little girl wished it?’”  He looked to John, as though expecting John to have the answer.

John waffled and settled for “I don’t know, maybe?  I don’t know what the crime was.”

Sherlock scowled.  “Well I said no.”

John frowned right back at him.  “I mean, if he killed a man, then no, but if he just...I don’t know, stole a diamond or something, then why not?  It’s kind of important to know that before making a decision.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed.  “So you think I made a mistake.”

“I’d bloody well know if you told me what his crime was!” John retorted.

Sherlock let out an exasperated sigh.  “ _Fine_ , then what if I _did_ grant one to Klasina?  Say I then granted the other eleven their miracles.  Now how do you explain to a thirteenth child that his mother dying of cancer was somehow less _worthy_ of being miraculously restored to health compared to Klasina’s father being released from prison?”

“Sherlock, that isn’t fair!” John blurted out.

“ _No, it isn’t!_ ” Sherlock thundered, bringing himself up to full height.  “Earlier tonight, John, I saw a man bleeding to death from injuries sustained in a gang fight, from that window you were _so_ curious about.  That man’s little sister had been praying for him to come home safely for weeks, and for a moment I thought, ‘maybe I should,’ but then I remembered all _10,253_ other possible miracles that I could be granting at that moment, and then he died.  There in the street.  Nothing is _fair_ about this business, John— _nothing!_ ”

“Why didn’t you _tell_ me, then, I could’ve done something to help him!” John shouted, fists clenching.

“ _Damn_ your fucking hero complex, John, you are MISSING THE POINT!” Sherlock spat.  “I am a _detective_.  Do you want to know why?  Because in detecting I can illuminate the truth, and only in the truth can there be any sense of _justice_ or _sanity_ in this world.  That is all that can be done.”  He sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes.  “I’m just a man, John.  I’m not a hero, or a saint.  I bring evidence to light, I solve the puzzles, and I leave judgement to the courts.  I can do no more.”

John couldn’t think of a response to that.  Not right away.  He licked his lips and looked past Sherlock’s shoulder, while Sherlock looked to the floor.  Silence stretched between them as the smoke in the air gradually dissipated, allowing their vision to sharpen the outlines that they could see of each other.

John came to a decision and straightened his posture, regaining eye contact with Sherlock.  “I can’t accept that,” he said calmly.  “I just can’t.  There’s...There’s more to the world than just that, Sherlock.  There’s love, and joy, and...friendship.  And one time I forgot that, but you brought that back to me, you know.  _You_ did, Sherlock.”

Sherlock stared at him.  He stared at him for a long, long moment, then sighed, shaking his head.  “Still you don’t understand,” he murmured.

John felt like he’d been punched in the chest.  “What else could I possibly not understand?!” he snapped.  “I _entirely_ understand what you’re saying; you’re not seeing _my_ point!”

“Oh, you _understand_ , do you?” Sherlock said grimly, narrowing his eyes.  “Well, if you’re the expert on morality here, why don’t _you_ try bearing the mantle, then?”

“Fine,” John retorted.  “It’s not like I was brought here to help or anything.”

“Fine,” Sherlock replied, suddenly holding out a hand, palm facing flat and up.  His eyes glowed gold, and sheets of paper rapidly began materialising in his palm, falling and spilling to the floor, piling up in waves.  Minutes later, with John looking on in growing horror, the paper finally stopped.  “Let’s see you pick twelve candidates out of 10,253 contenders for a miracle, John, and then we can talk about _understanding._ ”  Sherlock ran his knuckles across his forehead.  “Now for god’s sakes, help me unlock the bedroom door so I can sleep off this horrendous day.”

John looked to the sheets of paper scattered in a sea across the floor and then back up at Sherlock.  “No,” he said.

“What do you mean, ‘ _no’_?”

John glared at him.  “I mean, Sherlock, that I’m not going to fucking kiss you until you get your arse on that damn sleigh and _do your job_.”

Sherlock stared at him incredulously.  “You can’t be serious, John, it’s four in the morning.  I can’t possibly do the sleigh run before dawn.”

“I DON’T FUCKING CARE,” John roared, pointing to the room’s exit.  “Get out!”

Sherlock didn’t move for at least fifteen seconds; he simply gaped at John with the shock of a lordling being told ‘No, Mummy will not buy you another pony.’  Then his face darkened, and he turned with a sneer, kicking at the mountain of paper ruthlessly, scattering it further.

“If anyone needs me, I’ll be _asleep_ in the stables,” he called over his shoulder.

John just flipped him off and looked at the challenge spread before his feet, then cursed aloud as he remembered the fact that Sherlock still had the pipe.

***

Keyed up on bouts of angry adrenaline, John found that he wasn’t tired at all, despite being awake for...well, he didn’t want to think how long.  His head felt fuzzy and there was a faint ringing in his ear and the lingering smell of pipe smoke was giving him a headache, but he wasn’t tired.  He sighed, waded himself out of the paper, and sat down on the floor at the very edge of the paper puddle.  He picked up the first sheet.

It was for a teenage boy named Kwasi, living just outside of Nairobi, who desperately wanted to be a doctor but couldn’t afford university without a scholarship.  John’s heart seized, and he instantly put it in what he deemed the ‘Yes’ pile off to one side.

He picked up another sheet.

A girl named Mariana, six years old, needed a heart transplant.  She dreams of being a professional footballer when she grows up.  John hesitated, shut his eyes, and put the file in a newly formed ‘Maybe-Yes’ pile.

The next was a forty-year-old bride named Nolia, stuck in an airport in Los Angeles, who was going to miss her own wedding to the love of her life waiting for her in Singapore unless a new flight opened up in the next five hours.  John bit his lip and put hers in a ‘Maybe’ pile.

He went on, skimming sheet after sheet, getting close to sixty applicants and being unable to reject a single one of them, when he drifted to the floor and rested his head on his arm for a minute, falling quickly to sleep.

He woke up again when he felt a blanket being put on him, and he looked up to see Mrs. Holmes standing next to him, with a mug of coffee in one hand.  “Mm, Mum?” he mumbled, sitting upright and pulling the blanket across his lap.

“My husband was the same as you,” she said, carefully sitting down next to him.

John rubbed at his eyes.  “What d’you mean?”

She placed the coffee in front of him, and he took a grateful gulp—it was strong and black as sin, and it perked him right up.  “You can’t say no to any of them, can you?” she said, gesturing to the three small piles John had created, their boundaries already overlapping.  How she knew that a ‘No’ pile had yet to be formed was beyond him.

He shook his head and rubbed at his eyes again.  “This is impossible,” he groaned.  “I can’t do this.”

She briefly rested a hand on his shoulder, then moved it away.  “Patrick couldn’t choose between them either.  He refused to do it.  He always asked me to choose for him.”

“You?” John said, looking at her.  “You did this job?”

She nodded.

“What did you do?  How did you _possibly_ pick twelve out of all of this?” he asked, waving towards the ocean of desperation and hope.

She looked to one side, her face pale and her eyes gazing somewhere unseen.  “Having been outside the realm of humanity, I am able to adopt a certain distance from them in perspective.”  Her eyes connected with John’s again.  “I was once part of the snow, a part of nature, watching generations of farmers and woodsmen pass through the taiga, living out their lives of troubles, all of them the same yet not the same.  Everything turns.  Even when things go right they will eventually go wrong, and when things go wrong they eventually go right.  Some years the winter comes and stays for a long time; some years there is hardly a winter at all.  The choice is irrelevant.”  She offered John a brief upturn of her lips.  “I picked them at random,” she declared.

John closed his eyes and shook his head, placing his forehead in his hands.  “I can’t do that,” he said.  “That’s...I can’t tell if that’s more fair or less fair, but that’s too...”

“Cold?” she offered, smile sticking in place.  “Perhaps.  But it is the best I could do.  If nothing else, it absolved my Patrick from carrying the burden of a too-heavy conscience.”

John looked to her again, sipping at his coffee.  “What was he like, Sherlock’s dad?” he asked, then added, “If you don’t mind my asking.”

Her smile stretched, revealing white teeth beneath reddening lips.  “Patrick was the most curiously optimistic man I’ve ever met,” she said.  “He wanted to save the world.”

John’s eyes widened.  “... _Sherlock’s_ dad?” he said incredulously.  “I’d...I’d not have expected that, to be honest.”

She actually laughed a little, her chuckle sounding light, airy, and barely there, but it was there all the same.  “He was a very minor government worker,” she stated.

John’s eyebrows rose.

“Not as Mycroft is a ‘minor’ government worker, I assure you,” she hastened to add, seeing the look on John’s face.  “He was just a clerk of some sort.  Filing things, answering post on behalf of some politician, that sort of occupation.  But he so wanted to do more.  He wanted to rise through the ranks, change his country for the better.  He nattered on about it endlessly.”  She looked down briefly, as though lost in a memory, her smile still lingering.  “He was visiting Russia in the entourage of whatever politician he worked for, and one day when he had free time he met me after he’d gotten lost wandering off a ski slope.”  She shrugged.  “He was very interesting.  He talked and talked, and he wanted to know everything about me.  I found him curious, since usually only the _deti_ could ever see me in full daylight; he was perhaps only the third human adult in my acquaintance to recognise my existence—but then again, Patrick was always one to see things where others were not looking.”

Her small, nostalgic smile held steady, and John could see her cheeks flushing with colour.  “Eventually, I warmed up to him, so I forsook the snow and married him.  When The Obligation passed on to him after my Grandfather died, I think he was happiest I’d ever seen him.”  Her smile faded somewhat.  “He never did manage to do the things he’d planned for the world—he was, I think, too honest to become a proper politician, to get the power he needed to instigate change and improvements.  The day he realised that, his heart broke.”  She shook her head slightly, her skin returning to its normal pale hue.  “However, he did find joy in his family, and in The Obligation, despite its difficulties, and I was happy to assist him and provide him some respite from disappointment.”

John smiled softly at her.  “He sounds like he was a good man.”

“I am often told that,” she replied with a nod.  “I am proud to say it is true.”

John looked to the mounds of paper waiting for him, and a cloud of hopelessness came over him.  He rubbed his hand across his eyes again.  “God, I should apologise to him,” he muttered.  “He’s still wrong and an utter git, but this is harder than it looks.”

“If you mean my son, he’s not in,” Mummy Holmes replied.

John blinked, sitting up straighter.  “What do you mean he’s not in?  Where is he?”

She looked at John with a bit of a sparkle in her eye.  “He has gone out in the sleigh to deliver the rest of the gifts.”

John looked at his watch.  “It’s gone seven in the morning,” he said incredulously.  “He can’t possibly do anything without being seen.  It’s too late.”

“My son has mastered the art of hiding in plain sight,” Mummy Holmes replied, looking faintly amused.  “The number of times I nearly lost him in the mall when he was young is nigh on incalculable.  He shall be fine.  And if the gifts are delivered a day or two late, there is no real disaster.”

John set his coffee down and hung his head.  “I should be with him, though, I should be helping him.”

Mrs. Holmes set her hand on John’s shoulder and left it there.  “You _are_ helping him, John.  Even more than you realise.”

He sighed.  “Thank you, Mum.”

They sat together in silence, and eventually she removed her hand from his shoulder.  “Is there anything else I can get you?” she asked.

John shook his head and said, “No.  No, thank you.  The coffee is good.  I appreciate it.”  He stuck a thumb towards the unread possibilities.  “I should really be getting back to this, though god knows how I’ll do it.”

“You will find a way, John.  I am certain,” she replied, standing up.  She left the room at a leisurely pace, stepping up into the corridor and turning in the direction of her room.

John took a swig of his cooling coffee and pulled himself through about forty more proposals, continued to fail at rejecting any of them, and eventually dragged himself into an armchair and curled up with the blanket Mummy Holmes had left him, falling into uncomfortable sleep.

***

“John.  John.”

John felt a hand gently shaking his arm, and he squinted his eyes open to see Sherlock kneeling next to him, looking haggard; he had heavy bags under his eyes, and his hair was a white tangled mess.  John shifted and stretched, yawning, “Sherlock?  That you?”

“Of course it’s me,” Sherlock murmured back.

John cracked a crick in his neck.  “Your mum said you took the sleigh out.”

Sherlock scowled.  “She bullied me into it.”

John snorted, shaking his head.  “Should’ve guessed you wouldn’t do it of your own free will.”

Sherlock glanced down and bit his lip, then looked back up and met John’s gaze.  “Well...you made a few persuasive arguments as well,” he mumbled.

John smiled briefly at him.  “I’m glad you went through with it, Sherlock.”

Sherlock returned the small smile and stood up, keeping a hand on John’s arm.  “Come to bed."

“I—I haven’t finished the—” John protested tiredly, waving to the paper sea.

“It will still be there after you’ve had a proper rest,” Sherlock said.  “We could both use it,” he added, a bit pleadingly.

“Right.  Right,” John said with another yawn, standing up at last. 

They went up to the hallway and ambled down it, trying not to sleepily walk into each other, though they still bumped elbows.  At the door, they stared at each other with bloodshot eyes.

“All right?”

“Yeah.”

Sherlock bent down and pressed his lips to John’s, but instead of moving away, he just...stayed there.  John squinted his eyes open and made a soft noise of confusion.  In response, Sherlock lifted his hands and placed one on John’s shoulder and the other against his jaw—not to pull him closer, just to keep him in place, steady and solid.  John blinked, going a bit cross-eyed, seeing Sherlock’s eyebrows furrow together in concentration.

Sherlock pressed his mouth the slightest bit closer into John’s, lips shifting softly.  For reasons John was too tired to comprehend, the sore feeling in his chest that had stuck around since his argument with Sherlock felt like it’d been smoothed over with a salve, and somehow John just understood that this was Sherlock trying to apologise, and he thought it was only fair to return the gesture.  He let his mouth soften and closed his eyes, and Sherlock relaxed into the kiss with a slow exhale through his nose, lightly sucking at John’s upper lip.  John brought one of his hands up to Sherlock’s waist and curled the other around his back, shuffling closer.

When Sherlock pulled away, John was so caught up in the plush, comforting feel of the kiss that he pressed back in, catching Sherlock’s lips in a smile.  They stayed there, savouring the warmth and texture of each other’s skin, and the second time they broke apart, it seemed only natural to wrap their arms around each other and just stand together.

John closed his eyes and let his head fall against the furred ruff of Sherlock’s coat, sleep-deprived and comfortable enough to contemplate just falling asleep there.  He felt Sherlock press his nose into his hair, arms holding secure across his back.

“I can’t do this alone,” Sherlock whispered, a tired huskiness in his voice.

“I know,” John breathed into his coat.  “I should’ve been with you.”

“Mm,” Sherlock hummed, gently starting to pull John into the room.  “We’ll figure’t out t’morrow,” he slurred.

John hummed in agreement and they collapsed on top of a bed, entangled together in a warm, tired embrace.  Somewhere in Europe, children woke to discover their shoes and stockings filled with presents, chocolate, and socks, as though nothing had changed from the year before.  They only knew that magic had alit overnight—as it has done time and again since the winters of old.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N** : Congratulations, readers, you have made it to the end of Part 1. Thanks to those of you who've been reading, commenting, kudosing, etc., you've helped make this debut quite exciting for me! Now you get to wait an indeterminate amount of time for me to finish writing Part 2, have it go through the beta, and then it will come back in rapid-fire publishing action. Rather like the real Sherlock series, lol (though I won't make you wait two years, I promise).
> 
> In the meanwhile, feel free to ask me any questions here or at my tumblr (same name, I trust you can find me), or tell me about what your family's winter holiday traditions are like (doesn't matter what the holiday is--I like learning about ALL the holidays). You never know--if you tell me something neat, it could possibly end up in a future chapter and help encourage the culture fest I've got goin' on in the footnotes. And, as previous comments have shown, YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO CHANGE THE FUTURE by inspiring me with stuff (ONE DAY, SEXY BEAR SCENE), so don't be shy about chatting with me! :D
> 
>  **CAUTION** : BE WARNED, badgering me about "when will the next chapter be up?" and its variants will _deliberately_ make me postpone posting by an extra week. I WILL MAKE A TALLY SHEET, SO HELP ME GOD, and it will be your collective fault if Part 2 doesn't come up until March. Talk to me about anything and everything else, but not about ETAs. Thanks in advance! :-)


	7. Ornaments and Sugar Plums

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N** : Hello, readers, long time no see! I hope you made it through the rest of the holidays (and Season 3 of _Sherlock_ ) in one piece and that you're ready for some belated festive spirit coming your way. I'd like to extend yet another profuse gushing of gratitude to dear beta Shaindy for casting her keen eye over Part 2! I'd also like to thank _all_ of you for being so patient with the next instalment--you're truly fabulous readers and I love ALL OF YOU.
> 
> Some things of note: At one point I said this fic in its entirety would be 4 parts total. It has since expanded into 5 parts total. It GREW. **horror movie screech** Also, I'm thinking of changing the updating method from "chapter every day" to "chapter once a week," solely so you don't have to wait quite as long between instalments. Does that sound good to you? (Be sure to let me know—the plans to change the updating schedule are for your benefit, and if it doesn't benefit...then that would defeat the purpose.) Lastly, I’ve been setting up a [“You and Sugar Plums”](http://canolacrush.tumblr.com/tagged/You-and-Sugar-Plums) tag over on my tumblr, where I’m planning on putting stuff that just CAN’T FIT in the story itself—a bit about the creation of different rooms at the North Pole (like the history behind why there’s a mistletoe lock in the first place), background research stuff and stuff I draw inspiration from, etc. So you can check that out if you’re interested.
> 
> Happy reading!

Part II: St. Lucia's Day

Chapter 7: Ornaments and Sugar Plums

 

John awoke feeling warm and muddled, head groggy with oversleep and limbs sore from yesterday's exertions. He buried his face into his pillow and stubbornly kept his eyes closed, waiting for his brain to catch up with the rest of him. Little by little, memories of the previous day came trickling back, leaving a sharp, sour taste on his tongue as he remembered the arguments and mounds of paper. The texture of his unscrubbed teeth and slept-in clothes felt even grungier in light of those thoughts. Then he remembered Sherlock. Sherlock, who'd fallen asleep next to (slightly on top of) him after a somewhat-more-affectionate-than-usual...moment. Sherlock who was not there. 

His eyes snapped open and he sat up, only to find that Sherlock had retreated to his own bed and was sitting cross-legged on top of the quilt, staring directly at him in what John had come to think of as ‘the vulture position’—a state where Sherlock did nothing but patiently watch until something conclusive happened and then picked whatever it was apart. Usually the victims of ‘the vulture position’ were the experiments in the kitchen. John had never been the target before. 

"...Hi," John said, staring back at him with furrowed eyebrows.

"Good afternoon, John."

The staring continued.

"What are you doing?" John asked.

"I'm thinking about you," Sherlock replied.

John blinked and reminded himself that Sherlock did not 'think about' things the same way that most people did. "Okay…why?" he said slowly.

"In the past four hours, I've discovered that there are two things that help silence the _noise_ the rest of the world imposes while I'm in this... _festive_ state," he said, adding a sneer at the word 'festive.' "You happen to be one of them."

"Me? Why me?"

Sherlock shrugged. "You're grounding. A physical reminder of Baker Street. Something I can trust not to descend into the madding chaos this season inspires."

John raised an eyebrow. "Even after yesterday?"

Sherlock smiled a little. "Even so. You bounce back to stability very rapidly under pressure."

John lifted a corner of his mouth. He stretched out the stiffness in his shoulder and asked quietly, "What's the other thing, then?"

Sherlock furrowed his eyebrows. " _Sugar plums_ ,"[7] he said, sounding completely mystified.

John barked out a laugh. "You can't be serious."

Sherlock sighed. "It comes with the occupation. Though why this system believes that dancing sweets of dried fruit are efficient mufflers is beyond me; it's not as though they particularly _enthral_ the imagination."

"And I do?" John said, then instantly wished he could take it back, because there was no way asking someone if you enthralled their imagination was anywhere near an appropriate thing to ask.

For his part, Sherlock looked caught off guard—but only for a second. His wide-eyed surprise shifted into a condescending smirk in record time. “Give yourself some credit, John, you're at least more interesting than a mere carbohydrate.”

“Um, ta,” John said, avoiding his eyes. He shifted out of bed and said, “I'll just...finish getting up then.” He retreated to the bath, leant his back against the door and closed his eyes with a small sigh.

That was…awkward. He knew exactly where it was coming from, too—all that...door kissing. More specifically, the fact that the door kissing had gone beyond necessity. Last night (technically this morning), they'd both been exhausted, weren't exactly thinking clearly, and it'd been a fairly emotional day overall. However, the incident _could_ be excused as letting off pent-up energy and wanting to reconcile—because that’s all it was, really. Therefore, the solution was easy: just keep things simple and practical, and the awkwardness would go away.

But like some unseen rattlesnake sounding out a warning in the underbrush of his mind, he could hear the prophecy of Mummy Holmes: _you will be getting to know each other better_. The thought suddenly made him angry. He _knew_ Sherlock already! At least, he knew him better than most of the other people in his life—he definitely spent more time with him than anyone else. Yeah, there was the whole...related to Father Christmas thing he hadn't known about. And he still had no idea if Sherlock had ever had anyone important in his life before John. Not that John was important. Well, he was his best friend, he hoped that meant he was somewhat important. But not that...no. Start over.

John lifted himself off the door and went to use the toilet before shaving. As he ran the blade carefully down the skin of his cheek, letting the repetitive motion calm him, he revised his thoughts. So maybe he _was_ learning more about Sherlock. He'd learnt that Sherlock had an overwhelmingly pessimistic attitude about the world. He'd also learnt that Sherlock actually had a breaking point when it came to stress and that he lashed out at everyone and stormed out on the problem once he'd reached it. But he'd also found out that Sherlock seemed to get on well enough with his mother and that he showed his vulnerabilities to John but not to anyone else.

Which proved that the things he was learning about Sherlock didn't necessarily mean that anything would change. Nothing was changing really. Sherlock was still his best friend and the man who'd brought back excitement and friendship and joy and—he nicked himself, blood dripping from a spot near his jaw, and he dropped the razor in the sink and cursed.

“John?” said Sherlock from behind the door.

“Ah, fine. I'm fine,” John answered, running water from the sink and splashing some onto the wound.

“You've nicked yourself.”

Because of course Sherlock would just know that. Or deduce that. Possibly both. “Yes, I know. Doctor, remember? I can handle it.”

He waited a moment, applying pressure with a washcloth to encourage the wound to stop bleeding, and then, paranoia setting in, he thought to himself, _Sherlock, if you're listening, get the hell out._ Because if Sherlock was indeed listening to his thoughts that would do nothing to make the awkwardness go away.

But when he'd said that the other day, the thing about love and joy and friendship, he honestly hadn't _meant_ , well, what it sounded like. It had just been a spur-of-the-moment...it had just been an instinctual...it'd just been the _truth—_ no, well _yes_ , but not like that. Not like that at all. He'd meant love in a general way; there was more than one form of it, after all. It didn't have to be what Mrs. Holmes and everyone who met them implied. That's not what they were, and there was no reason for it to change.

John looked at himself in the mirror hanging above the sink, at his half-shaved face and alarmed eyes and angry red cut on his jaw. “No,” he said to his reflection. “...No,” he said again, remembering how it'd felt like a fist to his heart when Sherlock had failed to even acknowledge John telling him how important he was in John's life. “No,” he said quietly, recalling with growing dread that _he'd_ been the one that had gone in for the second kiss last night, simply because it had felt _nice_.

He bowed his head, took a deep breath, and looked back up to glare into his reflection. “ _No_ ,” he said, with determination. Sherlock didn’t feel things like that, would _never_ —he’d told John himself, countless times, across many cases, disparaging the very notion as a weakness—and anything more than what they were already would be too much to handle _anyway_ even if it were otherwise, what with Christmas coming and the other emotionally draining projects they had to do before then. There was no point even thinking about it. And he was _happy_ , damn it. They were both happy. He'd never wanted anything different before now, not once, and he _still_ didn't want anything different. This was just a…blip. A meaningless blip. Why have a new thing when what's already there wasn't broken? There was no reason for anything to change. Nothing would.

Satisfied with his mental pep talk, John nodded to himself, finished shaving, and had a bath, all the while chanting ' _sugar plums_ ' in his head as a precaution against the nosiness of supernaturally enhanced detectives.

***

When he came back out drying his hair, he found Sherlock stretched out on his own bed, staring at the ceiling and appearing to be doing nothing in particular. John cast a suspicious glance at him, wondering how much he'd heard of John's thoughts while he was in the bath. He decided to ask in the most roundabout way possible, which was basically the same thing as not asking at all and avoiding the subject entirely.

“Shouldn't you be doing something?” John asked.

Sherlock sighed slowly. “No.”

“Checked the List already?”

“No.”

John frowned and put his hands on his hips. “I may be new around here, but I'm pretty sure there's a lot more children to deliver to on Christmas. You haven't seriously given up, have you?”

“Given the events of yesterday, we are entitled to the rest of the day off, John. It's one of the unspoken rules around here. Besides—” Here Sherlock let out a particularly anguished sigh. “—The Obligation is not like solving a crime; it doesn't get done the faster you work. It's set to a schedule. So there's no point in fussing over it straightaway.”

“Oh,” John replied, letting his hands fall back to his sides. “Yeah, I guess I can see that.” After about thirty seconds of nothing but quiet, John checked his watch to see that it was 4:40. He sighed. “Well, I guess I should get back to that pile of paper in the living—”

“No,” Sherlock interrupted, suddenly sitting up.

John blinked. “What do you mean 'no'? I still have 10,000 some-odd files to read through, and they're not going to read themselves.”

“You're not listening, John, _we_ are entitled to the rest of the day off. Everyone is. And Mummy is expecting us for the tree. You’ll not want to displease her, I’m assuming?”

John thought about it, and yeah, no, he really didn’t want to get on Mummy Holmes’s bad side. The woman was intimidating enough on her own. “The tree?” John asked.

“ _Christmas_ tree, John, surely you know what that is.” Sherlock swung his legs over the side of his bed and stood up, going over to open the door.

John instinctively followed Sherlock out of their bedroom and into the hallway. “Of course I know what it is. I just, er, didn't think you'd have one.”

Sherlock shrugged. “Tradition. Mummy is hopelessly enamoured with the tree. She insists on decorating it every St. Nicholas Day.”

John smiled, a little surprised that the glacial Mrs. Holmes actually had a favourite part of Christmas. But then again, when he'd spoken to her yesterday, she'd practically lit up while talking about her husband, so maybe there were some spots that got through the ice.

They ducked into the breakfast room to find Mummy Holmes in her customary chair at the table, and John realised with the smell of fresh baked goods that he was ravenous. He made a beeline to the plate of chocolate chip muffins and grabbed two for himself, noting with some surprise that muffins and tea were the only items available—he guessed the elves were taking a break. Sherlock was beside him, pouring out two cups of tea. John, noticing, picked up another muffin and carried the lot to the table, shoving one of the muffins in Sherlock's direction as Sherlock placed a teacup in front of him. John dug into a muffin relentlessly.

“Congratulations on completing your first round of gift-giving,” Mummy said, putting down her book to watch them devour their extremely late breakfast.

Sherlock harrumphed into his tea. John quite frankly had to agree with him. They shared a sceptical look.

Mummy, seeing their look, said, “You _did_ complete it after all.”

John swallowed a mouthful of tea and said, “Well, we couldn't've done it without your help, Mum.”

Sherlock promptly kicked him under the table.

“ _Ow!_ What was that for?!” John hissed at him.

“Stop sucking up to my mother, John. It's annoying.”

“I was being _polite_ , you git,” John protested, kicking him back.

This set off an impromptu kicking war, which made John at one point question his own maturity before he thought 'to hell with it' and unleashed his multiple annoyances with Sherlock out on his shins.

“Boys. Boys. _Boys_ ,” Mrs. Holmes said, finally slamming a hand down on the table. They stopped and looked over. She looked faintly amused. “There is no need for that,” she said calmly.

“Sorry, Mrs. Holmes,” John said quietly, turning red-faced with embarrassment and feeling precisely eight years old again.

Sherlock kicked him one more time and smirked. John glared at him.

“Sherlock,” said Mrs. Holmes, a touch sternly.

Sherlock, bloody git that he was, refused to look the least bit abashed.

Both John and Sherlock went back for another muffin, savouring the warm chocolate morsels and calming the roiling of their empty stomachs. They finished their breakfasts in peace, and when they were done, Mrs. Holmes practically teleported to the door in her haste.

“Shall we decorate the tree?” she asked.

“ _Mummy_.”

“Absolutely,” said John.

She led them down the hallway into the atrium, where there was a massive evergreen tree smack in the middle, towering over them at twelve feet tall. John looked to the base and noticed with no small amount of surprise that it looked like the tree was actually...growing out of the ground.

“Wow,” John breathed. “You know, I'm pretty sure this wasn't here yesterday.”

“Well observed, John,” Sherlock said dryly. He was kicking over a box that had been placed against one of the walls, bringing it closer to the tree.

“Well, I was going to ask _how_ it got there, but I have a feeling there isn't a good answer for that,” John retorted.

Sherlock had opened the box and was rifling through it, and, apparently dissatisfied with its contents, kicked it over to John, where it collided into his legs. He went back to the wall, kicked over another box, and began to inspect it before quickly rejecting it and fetching another.

For his part, John thought the decorations in the box at his feet looked perfectly fine, so he sent a shrug to Mrs. Holmes and grabbed one from the box and put it on the tree. She came over to stand next to him and helped empty the box; with each ornament she retrieved, she paused and considered it, then seemed to place the ornament in a strategically artistic location, fussing to make sure it hung with the correct side facing out. John, who was mostly just grabbing ornaments at random and placing them at random, noticed that she had a soft smile on her face all the while. Sherlock continued to inspect and reject various boxes in his search for whatever it was he was trying to find.

“So what are we gonna do about the top bits?” John asked Mrs. Holmes, putting a bird-shaped ornament on a knee-level branch. “I don't think any of us is tall enough to reach quite that far. Unless we're planning to stand on each other’s shoulders.”

She carefully positioned a blue orb on a branch just above her head. “In the past my husband would put the boys on his shoulders, until they grew too big for that to be feasible. Nowadays we have a stair-ladder.”

John smiled. “That's adorable.”

“I would show you the photographs, but they only exist in my mind,” she stated. She fetched a red ribbon from a new box and tied it neatly on the edge of a branch. “Sherlock climbed the tree once when he was five. Then he could not figure out how to get down.”

John burst out laughing, because he could picture it far too clearly. “Oh god, like a little cat.”

“Precisely what I observed.”

“Mummy, he doesn't need to know that,” Sherlock interrupted, kicking over another box.

“Oh, yes I do,” John objected.

“There is no harm in it, _kotenok._ ”

Sherlock scowled at her, and John felt a thrill of pure glee, because Sherlock's pet name was kitten and there was nothing more perfect than that.

“Shut up, John.”

“Didn't say anything,” John said, grinning ear-to-ear.

“I can _hear you thinking_ ,” Sherlock snapped, ripping open another box. “WHERE IS IT?” he demanded.

“What are you looking for?” John asked.

“My ornament,” Sherlock replied stiffly. “Did you throw it out, Mother?”

“No, son. Why would I do that?” she said, tying on another bow. “It is in there somewhere. Keep searching.”

It was in the eighth box that Sherlock finally found his ornament, and he held it up with a triumphant “ha!” John looked over to see Sherlock holding up an enlarged yet anatomically correct model of a honeybee, its frame constructed out of polished gold, with black obsidian stripes and eyes. He swooped over to the tree, removed all the ornaments John had previously placed on a certain branch, then hooked the ribbon loop connected to the bee's back on the branch, leaving it as the sole occupant. The bee glimmered impressively.

“A bee?” John said, turning to him with a smile.

“Yes,” Sherlock answered, gazing a while longer on the solitary ornament as he folded his arms across his chest.

“Didn't know you liked bees.”

Sherlock shrugged, but John wasn't fooled. The man was practically radiating a quiet and childish sort of contentment, the green of his eyes shimmering with amusement. It was rather sweet, really. John puzzled over that realisation a moment, because Sherlock was very rarely ever _sweet_ —he mostly kept sweetness reserved for Mrs. Hudson (and perhaps his mother, though their relationship didn't especially strike John as _sweet_ , more like formally fond). So apparently the other thing to bring out that side of Sherlock was bees. Huh. Bit random. But still, the fact of that alone seemed...well, sweet.

Before John had really finished processing this new titbit of information, Sherlock had turned on his heel and stalked away, flinging off his coat dramatically.

“Where are you going?” John asked.

“Nowhere in particular,” Sherlock replied, balling up the coat and tossing it onto the floor near a wall. He then plopped down onto the floor, laid his head upon the makeshift pillow, and positioned himself like a medieval aristocrat carved on the face of a sarcophagus. He closed his eyes and looked dead to the world.

“Really?” John said. “You put up one ornament and then call it quits?”

“Problem?” Sherlock rumbled from the floor.

“Leave him be, John,” said Mrs. Holmes, coming around from the other side of the tree. “He will help again with the candle-lighting.”

With a shrug, John went back to decorating. At one point, Mummy Holmes brought over a rolling stair-ladder from somewhere and they worked on the upper branches of the tree, with Mrs. Holmes taking charge of ornament-placing on the ladder while John passed up ornaments and held the ladder steady. It took about another hour and a half before they ran out of ornaments from seven out of eight boxes, and in the last box John found a large pile of thin white candles, metal candle-holder contraptions designed to hook onto tree branches, and a stunning angel tree-topper.

John picked up the angel with a look of awe: she didn't look like any of the usual tree toppers he saw—blond porcelain blue-eyed figurines dressed whiter than a First Communion dress. _This_ angel was bursting with rich colour: she wore a golden gown with a flowing red overcoat, the coat's edges trimmed in brown fur; her wings were forest green with the feathers' tips edged in black; and she had an olive complexion with almond-shaped, honey-coloured eyes. But what struck John the most was her hair, which looked rather familiar with its dark ringlets falling over her shoulders.

Mrs. Holmes stepped a few paces down the ladder and stated, “I've been told that she is modelled after Sherlock's great-great grandmother on Patrick's side of the family, and created by his great-great grandfather. I do not know the validity of the information, but it would not surprise me if there was art in the blood somewhere in the Holmesian genealogy."

“She's beautiful,” John said with a smile, passing the angel to Mummy Holmes, who stepped back up to the top and stretched to place the angel on the single, vertical branch. The figurine fit perfectly.

“Now we just have to set up the candles,” said Mrs. Holmes, coming down the stair-ladder.

John looked over to where Sherlock was lying on the floor, possibly dozing. “Are you helping?” he called.

Sherlock simply waved a dismissive hand in his direction.

“Lazy sod,” John muttered. He started sticking candles in holders and figuring out how to make them go on the tree. Then he had to decide where to put them so they wouldn't catch fire to anything. Then he and Mrs. Holmes had to put some near the top half of the tree. At last, when every candle had been arranged, John sighed and said, “Now we just have to light them all and hope nothing catches on fire.” He looked up and down the massive tree. “We'll need a lot of matches.”

“That shall not be necessary,” said Mrs. Holmes, who then looked over her shoulder and called, “Sherlock, if you would be so generous.”

Sherlock breathed in deeply and then sprang up from the ground, picking up his coat and shoving his arms through the sleeves. He walked over with a yawn and asked, “Did you leave my ornament alone?”

“Yes, son,” said Mummy. “It is undisturbed, just as you like, though not as a bee would prefer.”

“Good,” he stated. Sherlock looked up and down the tree expressionlessly, then started rubbing his hands together. John watched in growing incredulity as thin tendrils of smoke began to rise from the rapid friction between Sherlock's hands, and all at once Sherlock blew sharply into the gap between his palms and a flame erupted. He carefully shifted the fire to pool in the depression of one hand, and with the other he dipped his fingers one by one into the orange light, pulling out a tiny flame on the tip of each finger.

John gawked. “That's a new trick,” he said.

Sherlock smirked. “An old trick, actually, but new for me.” He held up the hand holding the five tiny flames and gently blew on them, and John watched in stupefied wonder as the little fires floated off Sherlock's fingers towards the tree, slowly hovering in circles around it before they each found a candle to rest on.

Sherlock dipped his fingers anew into the fire and repeated the process.

One by one the candles became occupied with light and the tree took on that extra sparkle of magic that only illumination could bring. When the last flame for the last candle flew off the tip of Sherlock's thumb, he closed his fist around the fire and extinguished it, smoke curdling out from between his fingers before disappearing entirely.

They stared in silence at the tree. John glanced over to find that Mummy Holmes had suddenly acquired a strawberry-blond tint to her hair, and she was staring raptly at the tree with bright blue eyes and smiling openly with a pinkish hue in her cheeks. Startled, he turned to Sherlock to find that he was also watching his mother. On catching John's eye, he simply raised a finger in front of his lips; John nodded.

After a time, when Mrs. Holmes's appearance slowly began to revert back to its colourless hue and the bright smile on her face began to fade, John felt it was safe to speak again.

He turned to Sherlock and teased, “You didn't think to warn me that you've become a fire hazard? More than usual, anyway?”

“Blame the Scandinavians,” Sherlock retorted. “They have an unhealthy obsession with candlelight when it comes to Yule.”

“Right, I'll be sure to blame an entire landmass of people when you burn down the North Pole in a fit of boredom, then.”

Sherlock smiled. “And when it happens, I'll be sure to blame you for giving me the idea in the first place, John.”

John grinned and lightly nudged him with an elbow, which Sherlock automatically reciprocated. Mrs. Holmes looked between them and stated, “Your brother was right about the two of you, Sherlock.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Don't bring Mycroft into this, Mummy.”

She ploughed on regardless, turning to John and saying, “You have possibly made him worse than ever.”

John smiled. “Yeah, a bit. Sorry about that.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “No matter. You have also made him better.” She drifted forward and placed a hand lightly on his arm. “Thank you for your assistance,” she said, gesturing towards the tree but clearly meaning something else. She then turned to Sherlock and placed a hand on his cheek, leaning down slightly to kiss his other cheek. “I think I shall retire early tonight. Can you manage yourselves?”

“Of course,” Sherlock replied, bumping his nose to one side of her face in the semblance of a return kiss. “Goodnight, Mummy.”

“Goodnight,” she said, sending a nod in John's direction and gliding out of the atrium.

Once John was fairly certain she was out of earshot, he turned to Sherlock and asked quietly, “Is your mother all right?”

“Yes. Do you want to eat? I could go for bacon,” Sherlock answered, starting off in the direction of the dining hall.

John followed. “Uh, yeah, sure.” After a few seconds, he added, “It's just she doesn't normally look like that. Um, human, that is. ...Relatively speaking. You know what I mean.”

Sherlock pushed open the door, and John was surprised to find that there were very few elves seated within—a table or two of them at the most—all of whom looked over and chirped “Good evening!” at them before returning to their meals. John checked his watch and realised with some surprise that it was nine o'clock.

“Good evening,” Sherlock answered the elves, heading towards the back table where some food was still laid out in wait for them. He dished out a few slices of bacon on a plate and sat down, waited for John to do the same, and then continued, “When Father was alive, she used to always look like that, excepting perhaps when she was angry. Nowadays she only appears that way when she thinks of him or the tree. The tree has something to do with her childhood, though I can't imagine what. Never asked.” He dug into the bacon with unusual vigour and, after a moment, added, “She is likely just tired, if you're concerned about her retiring early. She was up as late as we were, then woke up earlier than us to make the muffins.”

John nodded and sipped at a mug of tea. “She sounds like she loved him very much, your dad.”

Sherlock made a disinterested noise of acknowledgement, found a croissant, and ate it.

John eyed the apathetic demeanour of his flatmate carefully. “She told me a bit about him, after you'd...given me the applications. He sounds like he was a good man.”

Sherlock casually looked away into the middle distance and picked at the remains of his dinner. After about a minute of complete silence, Sherlock stated, “My father was a fool.”

John blinked. “That's...a bit unkind,” he said cautiously.

Sherlock shrugged and let the fork he was fiddling with fall back to the plate with a clatter. “It is the truth. He was an idealist with no means to accomplish his frankly quixotic goals, and when he finally realised that, he gave up and died a fool's death. A soft heart, John, is the sign of a weak mind.”

“Is it really that bad that he wanted to help people?” John retorted.

Sherlock furrowed his brow. “That's not what I said.”

John sighed. “Yes, I know,” he conceded. “It's just...can you really demean your own father for believing in something he felt was worthwhile?”

Sherlock didn't look the least bit perturbed. “Yes.”

John raised his eyebrows. He went back to finishing his cooling dinner. “Fine then,” he muttered.

After a long, awkward moment, Sherlock sighed, lifted his eyes briefly to the ceiling, then brought his gaze back to John. “Stop identifying with my father, John, the two of you are nothing alike.”

It was John's turn to furrow his brow. “That isn't what your mother said.”

“Yes, well, of course she'd think that. She likes you. But while you and Father share an overzealous dedication for helping others as well as a certain degree of optimism, my father was a dreamer and a drivelling romantic. You, John, have the benefit of being a realist, in spite of your propensity for romanticism. Optimism in a dreamer begets a fool; optimism in a realist begets something else entirely.”

“Yeah? What's that then?”

Sherlock looked thoughtful for a moment, then slowly smiled, his eyes fixed on John. “A hero, perhaps, if given the right opportunity and resources.”

John paused mid-chew, blinking in disbelief, and swallowed thickly, feeling his face grow hot. “Ah, haha, _no_. No, I'm not a hero, Sherlock. I just do my job and make sure you don't get your head blown off by deranged pyrotechnicians from time to time.”

Sherlock kept his lazy smile in place. “Some might argue that you are.”

John took a mighty gulp of his tea and fidgeted, now embarrassed by the fact that he was blushing, which only made him blush harder. He shook his head, smiling, and said, “Nah, I'm not really. Usually the people who say that are trying to sell me something.” Forcing himself to make eye contact with Sherlock, he stared down a challenge.

Sherlock simply looked amused, his grin stretching. “And there's the realist,” he rumbled, then looked away. “Though it's a pity you're not a hero, John, because then it just makes you an idiot.”

John chuckled, feeling warm and inexplicably happy. “Sounds about right.”

They looked at each other and burst into a giggling fit. The elves smiled in their direction and whispered to each other.

When they quieted down, they came to an unspoken agreement that they were both done with their late supper/breakfast and stood up from the table, leisurely making their way out of the dining hall with a wave to the elves, who had started playing what appeared to be an ancient version of _Monopoly_. As they made their way through the atrium, John cast a fond look at the tree.

“I really do hope it doesn't catch fire,” he said.

“It shouldn't,” Sherlock replied, then flippantly waved his hands in the air and said, voice dripping with sarcasm, “ _Magic_.”

John smiled. “You know, for a man who doesn't believe in magic, you've been doing an awful lot of it.”

Sherlock failed to look bothered. “There is an explanation, we just don’t know what it is yet. It's likely some sort of nanotechnology.”

It was John's turn to look sceptical. “You think a centuries' old tradition of wonder is somehow because of advanced robotics and engineering? And you get on me for watching _Doctor Who_.”

“Because it's a ridiculous programme developed for insipid entertainment and loosely garbled together with suppositions and half-truths. It has no scientific value to speak of.”

“I disagree with that.”

“Disagree all you like, John, you'll still be wrong.”

John just rolled his eyes and let it drop. While walking down the tri-star corridor, John looked into the open living room, where the sea of paper still lay, waiting for him. He felt the lightness in his heart suddenly escape in a sigh, and the familiar heaviness of burden pushed down and clouded over his thoughts.

Beside him, Sherlock faltered in his stride and looked at him. They continued the path to their room in silence, and at the door, Sherlock regarded John with careful scrutiny. John just waited for the kiss to come, his mind already settling deep into thoughts of whether Kwasi and Tina and Sho still deserved to be in the three fluid piles of 'Yes.'

“John,” said Sherlock, after a long moment.

“Hm?” John replied, raising his eyebrows. “Oh. Yeah, it's fine, go ahead.” He closed his eyes and tilted his jaw upwards.

Sherlock sighed and placed a hand on his shoulder. “John,” he said again, more firmly.

John opened his eyes and was surprised to find that Sherlock's eyebrows had drawn together, and he actually looked...concerned.

“John, if the choice will be too difficult for you, I can take back that part of The Obligation. It was mine to begin with.”

John barely had to think of a reply. “No, Sherlock, I'll do it,” he stated, tone brooking no arguments. “I want to do it. I want to help.”

Sherlock smiled and lightly squeezed his shoulder. “Good old Dr. Watson. Reliable as ever.” He bent forward and gently pressed his lips to John's, and if the kiss lasted half a second longer than it should have, then neither man was counting the time.

The invisible lock creaked open, and they broke the kiss with small smiles on their faces, a fond look, and a quiet retreat into their sanctum, where they soon fell asleep under the soporific influence of the endless arctic night.

 

* * *

 

[7] Dear readers, have you ever wondered, like me, what the actual fuck a sugar plum is? _Prepare to find out_ – courtesy of our dear friend Wikipedia: “A **sugar plum** is a piece of dragée candy that is made of dried fruits and shaped in a small round or oval shape. ‘Plum’ in the name of this confection does not mean plum in the sense of the fruit of the same name. At one time, ‘plum’ was used to denote any dried fruit. ‘Sugar plums’ may be made from any combination of dried plums (aka prunes), dried figs, dried apricots, dried dates, and dried cherries, but traditional sugar plums may contain none of these. In one recipe, the dried fruit is chopped fine and combined with chopped almonds, honey, and aromatic spices, such as anise seed, fennel seed, caraway seeds, and cardamom. This mixture would then be rolled into balls, often then coated in sugar or shredded coconut.”

Nowadays, however, you can also find “sugar plum candy” which is essentially plum-shaped, plum-flavoured high fructose corn syrup but those are liiiiiiiiiieeees (in my personal opinion – no offense to anyone who likes those). My friends, you will know if you are in the presence of sugar plums when you see strange-looking things like the sort below:

As to how sugar plums became a part of the Christmas tradition, I have a feeling most of you know the answer already—a double tag-team combo of Tchaikovsky’s Sugar Plum Fairy in his _Nutcracker_ ballet and the famous line “visions of sugar plums danced in their heads” from Clement C. Moore’s poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas.”


	8. Anger and Eggnog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N** : Caution, readers, thar be Russian phrases in this chap'. But fear not! They are all translated at the end. :-) On that note, just a reminder--suggestions on correcting any foreign language moments in this fic are more than welcome, considering that most of them are not ones I'm schooled in (other than English and French, I got nothing). You can either make note of corrections in a comment for the relevant chapter, or you can email me at canolacrush@gmail.com if you choose. Happy reading!

John rushed through his morning preparations with fierce determination, sending only a distracted nod to Sherlock, who was seated in front of the fire and scanning through the List with a painfully bored expression on his face.

“You coming?” John said at the door to their room, after he'd deemed himself presentable for breakfast.

Sherlock lifted a lethargic hand and waved him away.

“Right, well, I'm going to be working in the living room after breakfast if you want to find me.”

“Close the door on your way out,” was the mumbled reply.

John did so and marched down the hallway, sparing a glance at the living room as he went by and silently promising himself that he was going to get through at least a fourth of that pile today, no exceptions. He will speed-read like a champion. He _will_ start a 'No' pile. He had to do this for Sherlock, but he also had to do it for himself, to prove that he could make one of the hardest decisions of his life and come out of it knowing that his principles were sound. If he didn't, if he just gave up, then he was acknowledging that he was a coward who couldn't stand by what he believed in, and John couldn't live thinking of himself like that.

When he went into the breakfast room, he was greeted by Mrs. Holmes and the smell of bacon. And fresh bran muffins.

“Morning, Mum,” he said, smiling and grabbing a plate. “I see there's muffins.”

“They're all I know how to make,” she admitted quietly, a spot of pink briefly appearing in her cheeks. “Sherlock is not with you?”

“Well, you make delicious muffins,” John said with a winning smile, sitting down at the small table. “And Sherlock's still in the room with the List, so who knows when he'll come out. You know how he gets when he's working.”

She nodded. “Though it is not a job he enjoys.”

“Don't think so, no,” John agreed.

She let him eat in peace for a while, reading a page or two of her book, before saying, “You'll be returning to your task as well, I presume. What is your strategy?”

John pursed his lips in contemplation. “Don't really have one. I'm mostly just planning on reading them and going with whatever I think is best.”

She raised a thin, white eyebrow. “That will not work.”

“Well it's the best I've got at the moment,” John said. He chewed at a slice of bacon and swallowed. “You could call it a strategy-in-progress.” He thought a moment. “How has Mycroft been doing it?”

“Much the same as I have done,” Mrs. Holmes replied with a shrug. “He believes there isn't a fairer option.”

“And Sherlock believes it's fairer to help none of them,” John said, a bit sadly. He didn't especially like that Sherlock had such a depressing outlook on things, but he could see some of where Sherlock was coming from, so John couldn't find it in him to dismiss the idea entirely. “He has a point, though, about the favouritism.”

Mrs. Holmes rolled her eyes. “It figures that the second son would have such an outlook,” she remarked. “Completely unfounded, of course. His father and I loved both of our children equally; though with their age difference, I can imagine Sherlock developing a jealous streak towards his elder brother, who'd already learned much of the world and was excelling in his education when Sherlock was just beginning kindergarten. You know how younger siblings are—they desperately want to keep up with everyone around them. Over time, Sherlock likely misinterpreted praise for Mycroft as preference.”

John processed this information for a moment and thought of him and Harry when they were kids. He expected it was a bit different when the siblings were different genders—different things were expected of them—but he could remember when Harry had started acting up in her teens, on a perpetual hunt for booze and staying out for days on end and worrying their parents half to death, how he'd felt like he was being ignored sometimes. He knew now that it was just because his parents were so worried, but as a ten-year-old he'd been a bit miffed.

“I suppose,” John said, sipping at his tea.

She offered him a nod and returned to her book, letting him finish the rest of his breakfast in a pensive silence.

***

On entering the living area again, John sighed and sat down in the spot he’d cleared two days ago, positioning himself between the unsorted mass and the ragged little pile of reviewed applications. He picked up a new one. Then another. Then another.

This went on for a few dragging hours, with John still not finding it in his heart to reject any of the new ones, until he pulled up one for a man named Tim.

Tim, forty-five years old, who’d never accomplished anything extraordinary in his life. He was a plumber. He worked hard at his job, didn’t have any siblings, parents were dead, no wife, no kids. Tim plugged along and was polite to everyone. He could afford a vacation to wherever he liked, but he didn’t see the point in going anywhere. He had friends and co-workers that he sometimes went to the pub with, and he felt like he didn’t have anything to complain about. He considered himself a bit boring—a grain of sand in a sand-coloured life. Tim felt like he was waiting for something to happen, but he had no idea what.

John took a deep breath and let it out. He put Tim in the ‘Yes’ piles.

Then he thought about it again. He knew he had to start a ‘No’ pile eventually. By all accounts, Tim was doing fine. He wasn’t in imminent danger; nothing in Tim’s life was hinging on a miracle to improve it. If Tim didn’t have a miracle this year, nothing would go wrong. Who’s to say that something wouldn’t happen in Tim’s life on its own, or that Tim wouldn’t decide to go on a trip or something, to spice things up a bit? If Tim wanted something to happen, he could very well make it happen on his own, without any magical intervention.

And yet.

And yet Tim has been waiting forty-five years for something to happen, and nothing ever did.

In short, John could relate. Sometimes the biggest barrier in someone’s life was their own sense of conviction; he’d had a psychosomatic leg to show for that (among other things), and John had needed the right nudge to get the ball rolling.

He pursed his lips in concentration. Who was he to say what counted as a ‘worthy’ miracle anyway? Did they all have to be something life-saving, or something that averted a crisis? Did all miracles _need_ to have that sense of gravitas, or to have such a universal heart-warming appeal that the news stations snatched up the story to put in their ‘good’ news segments? Or could they be, on occasion, something simple, uncomplicated, and so deeply personal that the rest of the world couldn’t begin to comprehend the importance of that moment in someone’s life?

John sighed. He kept Tim’s application in the ‘Yes’ pile.

But it got him thinking. Miracles could come in all shapes and sizes. So far, all the ones John had sorted through (and couldn’t reject) were the types that came with fanfare—the tearjerkers, the types that people always made Christmas movies out of. Tim’s miracle, if he was given one, would probably be only something Tim could appreciate—he might not even see it as miracle himself; it could go for years unacknowledged. But that didn’t mean it would be less of one.

However, by that way of thinking, then pretty much _everyone_ in the pile would be worthy of a miracle, and John quite badly needed to cut out a lot of people to meet the quota. He sighed again and picked up Tim’s application, putting it off to one side on its own.

He stared at it for a long time.

“It won’t solve itself with you just staring at it,” said a familiar baritone.

John looked up to see Sherlock stepping down into the room and skirting the paper shores. “What brings you out here?” he asked.

“Bored.” Sherlock flumped down across from John and picked up Tim’s application, then picked up a handful from the ‘Yes’ piles. “Besides, I thought I ought to remind you to eat sometimes; you’re not like me. John, are you aware you’re biasing your selections?”

John scratched at his temple. “Hard to say I’m biasing them when I haven’t been able to reject any of them.” He checked his watch, which read six o’clock sharp. “Is that really the time?”

“Hard to say,” Sherlock replied. “Practically speaking, we don’t have a time zone here.” He leafed through a few more pages and tilted his head to one side, raising an eyebrow. “So you’re aware that you’re singling out all the medical-based ones in this pile?”

Although the piles had bled together quite a while ago, John still had a vague system where ‘Extreme Yes’ fell on the leftward side and ‘Yes-Maybe’ fell on the rightward side. Sherlock had been gesturing to the ‘Extreme Yes’ half. John shuffled through a few of the sheets and realised that Sherlock was correct. He placed a hand over his eyes and groaned.

“God, I _am_ biasing them, aren’t I?”

“Yes, John, that’s what I said.”

John sighed, picked up Tim’s application, and slapped it hard overtop the ‘Extreme Yes’ clump.

Sherlock frowned. “Why did you do that?”

“’Cause you’re right. I was unconsciously biasing them and I should make an effort not to.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t disparaging your system, John, I was merely pointing out your developing methodology. I’m not going to interfere with your decision-making process unless you ask me.” He picked up Tim’s file and placed it back on its own.

John huffed. “Look, you made a good point. I’m going to include it,” he said, reaching over to pick up the paper again.

Sherlock captured his hand and held it down overtop Tim’s application, effectively keeping it in place. “No, John, _keep it here_ ,” he said seriously. He was staring John directly in the eye, with that look on his face that John hated, the ‘We Both Know What’s Going On Here’ Face. Except he didn’t know what was going on in Sherlock’s head, because he wasn’t the bloody telepath around here. “Think about this paper some more, think about why you set it _apart_ , John,” Sherlock continued. “It wasn’t because you didn’t think it deserved to be granted, was it?”

“No,” John agreed quietly, eyes flicking to where his hand remained trapped under Sherlock’s.

“Good,” Sherlock rumbled, nodding with the hint of an enigmatic smile. “The thing of it is, John, you occasionally have rather brilliant ideas, but you fail to see them for what they are.”

John frowned at him. “Is that supposed to be your idea of a clue?”

“Perhaps,” Sherlock replied evenly. “Though I’m not going to interfere with what you ultimately decide to do.” He released John’s hand and stood back up, then held out his hand once again. “Come on. I’d rather not endure the dining hall alone.”

John sighed, decided he needed a break anyway, and allowed himself to be helped up from the floor.

However, on standing, he caught a whiff of something that made his blood pressure spike, and he narrowed his eyes. He abruptly caught a handful of Sherlock’s coat and pulled it towards his nose, then closed his eyes and fixed his mouth in a thin line.

“Please tell me you haven’t been smoking again,” he said. He opened his eyes and glared up at Sherlock.

Sherlock stared down at him and didn’t say anything.

John kept his fist clenched around the fabric of the coat. “You still had the bloody pipe,” he muttered to himself, remembering two days ago. He exhaled sharply through his nose. “Sherlock. You are a grown man, and I shouldn’t have to babysit you like you’re a damn teenager,” he said. “I’ve been helping you quit for over a year now, but you know what? If you don’t actually want to then there’s nothing I can do. So fine. Do whatever you like.”

He let go of the coat and marched away, heading towards the dining room. He heard Sherlock hastening to follow behind him.

“John. It isn’t like that, John. It’s been helping to clear my mind of—”

“I don’t want to hear it, Sherlock,” John replied evenly, holding up a hand briefly to silence him, even though Sherlock was facing the wrong way to see it. “It's not my business.”

“John, it’s just—you weren’t in the room, John, and I—”

“Oh, don’t you blame this on _me_ ,” John retorted with a sardonic bark of a laugh, looking over his shoulder at Sherlock. “I’m not forcing you to light up, Sherlock, you’re doing that all on your own. I’m not your keeper.”

“John, please,” Sherlock huffed, about to add more, but John stopped in front of the set of double doors and just shook his head.

“Just…stop,” John said quietly. “Let’s just go and have dinner.” He pushed through the doors and let them in to the noise and the glittering festoons, putting on a cheery smile. “Evening, everyone!” he called to the elves, who all turned to the door as one entity and called back, “Good evening, John Watson!” He waved over to Mrs. Holmes and approached the table, dimly aware that Sherlock was still behind him.

“Evening, Mum,” he chirped, taking his customary seat. He heard Sherlock scraping the chair out to sit beside him. He kept his eyes on Sherlock’s mum. “What have you been up to today?”

“Knitting for next year’s stock,” she answered, carefully looking between them. “How are your tasks progressing?”

“I’ve still got a ways to go, but I’m keeping on,” John replied, reaching for a bread roll and helping himself to a glass of eggnog.

“Fine,” Sherlock muttered.

John slathered the roll in butter and bit into it, chewed, and swallowed. He smiled. “Good bread,” he commented. He took a few slices of ham from the plate Mrs. Holmes handed to him and helped himself to a few spoonfuls of garlic mashed potatoes. He’d just been about to tuck in properly when he heard Mummy Holmes clear her throat in a dignified manner.

He looked up and saw she was holding up a glass of red wine. “I’d like to propose a toast,” she stated.

“Oh, uh,” John said, scrambling for a wine glass.

“The beverage you have will suffice, John; we are not particular,” she said gently.

John smiled and held up the eggnog.

She stood up and turned to the assembly. “ _Moi druz’ya_ , we have worked hard through the first round of gift-giving. Your efforts have been commendable and are appreciated. _Za vas!_ ” The elves cheered, and she took a long sip from her glass; John followed suit and was about to set his glass down when she spoke again, “However, we know that there is more work yet to be done. _Davayte vyp'yem za uspekh nashego dela!_ ” She took another sip.

John took another swig of his eggnog and watched carefully to see what she’d do next. She turned around to face their table, and for a moment, she just stood there. Then she held out the glass in their direction and said, with a bit of a twinkle in her eye, “ _Za lyubov’_.”[8]

“ _Mummy_ ,” Sherlock whinged.

John just drank to whatever it was, rather hoping it was the last one, because whatever they’d put in the eggnog was a bit strong—he could feel the burn in his throat. Thankfully, she sat back down.

But then one of the elves stood up and called out, “ _Za khozyayku etogo doma!_ ”

Mrs. Holmes smiled briefly, nodded to the elf, and took a sip. John blinked and took another swig.

Then another one of the elves stood up and said, “To Master Sherlock!”

John glanced over to Sherlock, who didn’t look like he was particularly enjoying this turn of events. He lazily waved an acknowledgment to the elf and took the tiniest sip of whatever he was drinking.

John wasn’t in much of a mood to drink to his stubborn colleague, but he did anyway. It’d be a bit rude to openly snub Sherlock in front of his mother, after all.

Then another elf stood up—from what John could tell, it looked like Chestnut—who said, “And to John Watson!”

John smiled, said “Ta,” then took yet another swig. He was now out of eggnog. He shrugged and poured another one. “Say, what’s in this?” he asked Mrs. Holmes.

“Rum,” she replied. “And eggnog.”

“Is it more of one than the other?” John chuckled.

“I wouldn’t know,” she answered. “I did not make it.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I know how to hold my liquor,” John said.

Beside him, Sherlock sighed and stated, “That’s debatable.”

“Nobody asked you,” John retorted, taking a defiant gulp of rumnog.

“Your family has a history of alcoholism, John. Normally, you restrict yourself to one glass as a precaution, but you’re feeling aggressive and you don’t want to appear as a lightweight in front of my Russian mother, in spite of the undoubtedly high alcohol content of the eggnog since it’s always made strong here. You don’t actually know what your current tolerance level is; it’s going to be low.”

“Piss off,” John muttered under his breath, following that by eating a few forkfuls of mashed potatoes.

After about five minutes of silence broken only by the small sounds of dining and elfish chatter, Sherlock confided snidely to his mother, “John’s attempting to give me the cold shoulder, in case you’re wondering. We had an argument and he’s choosing to be passive-aggressive about it rather than dealing with the issue properly, likely because he’s feeling emotionally insecure about himself and his burgeoning attraction to me.”

John’s fork fell to the plate. “ _The bloody hell, Sherlock?!_ ” he hissed, glaring with cold fury at him.

Sherlock didn’t look the least bit perturbed. “Well it’s _true_ ,” he replied flippantly.

“It’s most certainly _not_ , you enormous tit,” John snapped. “You know perfectly _well_ why I’m upset with you, and I’m not just going to act like it’s no big deal. It’s called being disappointed in you and not having the energy to be angry, not some…perverted desire to play at pulling pigtails for no good reason.”

“Ooh, well, you’re angry _now_ , aren’t you? What can we infer from that?” Sherlock countered with a sneer.

“Oh, sod this,” John snapped, tossing his serviette onto the table and moving to stand up. He was immediately pulled back into his chair by Sherlock’s hand tugging on his shirt. “Let go, you sodding idiot.”

“Sit down, John, you’re being ridiculous.”

“ _I’m_ being ridiculous?”

“Yes, exactly.” Sherlock sighed loudly. “If it will make you feel better—” Here he pulled out the pipe and tobacco pin from a coat pocket and slapped them down on the table, pushing them towards his mother, who looked mildly surprised by the unfolding scene. “Here, Mother. Take these back. Hide them properly next time.”

She picked them up with a raised eyebrow. “Son, by ‘hide them properly,’ do you mean to say that I should force them under Mycroft’s door?”

“If possible, yes.”

“I shall attempt it,” she stated, placing the items beside her dessert spoon.

Sherlock turned sharply back to John. “There, are you happy now?” he snapped.

John wasn’t sure if he should glare at him or try to encourage the corrective behaviour by being accepting. He ended up with a little of both—furrowed brows and a muttered, “A bit.” He took a large gulp of the eggnog, savouring the sweet burn down his throat, the fire in it making him feel strong.

“John, you are underestimating the strength of that beverage,” Sherlock stated.

“I’m fine,” John replied, swallowing down the rest of the rumnog just to prove it. He set the mug down heavily and ate a few thin pieces of ham. Then a mouthful of green beans. Then he felt a sudden disorienting _woosh_ travel up from his stomach to his head. He carefully set down his cutlery, then put his head in his hands. “Oh,” he said.

“I did tell you,” Sherlock said with a sigh.

John was still trying to process the uncomfortable warmth that was radiating from his face and the fuzzy sense that time had somehow slowed down. “Right,” he said, ‘cause he was sure he was supposed to say something and he couldn’t come up with anything intelligent. He looked up to see Mrs. Holmes sitting across from him, who was gazing at him with an inscrutable look in her eyes and a Mona Lisa slant to her lips. Yeah, go ahead and laugh at the lightweight Englishman, Mum. Damn Russians and their fucking livers of steel.

She raised both eyebrows. “Christ, did I say that out loud?” John said. “Jesus—sorry, Mum. Sorry. You’re lovely. Russia’s lovely. I’ve always liked Russians. I met a bunch of them once—all lovely people, all lovely, they had lovely... I swear to God, though, you’re the loveliest. You’re the loveliest woman I’ve ever met.”

Sherlock groaned and stood up with a scrape of his chair. “All right, that’s enough. I’m removing him before he embarrasses himself further.”

“Yeah, sorry, it’s a bit—I get a bit talky,” John blathered, standing up too quickly and stumbling. Sherlock caught him and pulled one of John’s arms across his shoulders. “Sorry,” John said again, smiling at Mrs. Holmes. “There’s a bit of a—yeah. You know. Bit silly. Sorry.”

“Yes, we know, John,” Sherlock said, sounding mildly annoyed. “Say goodnight.”

“Yeah, sorry, you too,” John said to Mrs. Holmes, who was now smiling a bit more openly, clearly amused. “You know, that’s lovely. You smile lovely, Mum. Kisser’s smile, you’ve got. Trust me, I would know.” He suddenly looked to Sherlock and said sternly, “I _meant_ that.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and waved farewell to his mother, slowly taking the first few steps to guiding John out of the room. “Meant what? That my mother has a lovely smile?”

“Yeah, absholutin fuckley. Your mum’s, she—she’s lovely, you _arse_ , why don’t you never see her, you arse?” John accused.

“You said ‘arse’ twice,” Sherlock said, shuffling them along.

“You deshert… _deserve_ it,” John countered.

“Slurring already? Your metabolism must work quickly,” Sherlock muttered to himself.

“I’m shtill…pissed as hell.”

“Correct.”

“Pissed at _you_ , you fuckin’ git,” John clarified. “I try. I try, ‘n I try, ‘nd you jusht…you just toss it out, you tosh it all out.”

They’d moved out of the dining hall and were hobbling through the atrium, past the tree.

“Toss what out?” Sherlock asked.

“ _Every_ - _fuckin’_ - _thing_ ,” John hissed. “All the shit I do. To help. You dun’ even _try_.”

Sherlock paused near the entrance to the family wing. John let his head slump into Sherlock’s shoulder, not even caring, and closed his eyes for a moment to try to get a sense of his bearings through the molasses filter of his thoughts.

“I do try,” Sherlock said quietly. “I do try for you, John. I’ve never tried for anyone else. The effort is…new.”

John sighed through his nose and lifted his head back up. They resumed their slow pace, and John, for absolutely no reason, decided that Sherlock’s shoulders were far too broad for their own good. He told him so.

“What do my shoulders have to do with anything, John?” said Sherlock, sounding completely mystified.

“Dunno,” John admitted, but then he decided that he liked the shoulders after all, ‘cause they were sturdy, real. Like you could build a house on them. And Sherlock was warmer than he let on, too. He could heat a house. An entire house. “I could live in you,” John confided, burying his nose into Sherlock’s shoulder.

“…What?” Sherlock said softly, tightening his hold on John’s waist.

“I dun’ like t’ be mad at you,” John whispered. “You’re the funnest…fun guy. You’re so fun. Nobody knows it, but _I_ know. I fuckin’ know.”

They’d reached the threshold to their room, and Sherlock gently separated them. John rested one hand against the wooden doorframe to support himself and placed the other on his hip, bowing his head downwards a little to get a sense of where his feet were. He straightened them properly and looked back up. Sherlock’s brow was furrowed, with that strange shiny hesitant look in his eyes he got once in a blue moon. It made John’s heart sore.

“Fuck shake,” John muttered, rubbing his free hand over his eyes. “Fucking _hell_ , why can’t I ever stay mad at you, Sherlock?”

“I—”

“No, _shh_ ,” John hissed at him, placing a finger over his own mouth briefly. “Whatever it is, I dun’ want t’hear it. I _don’t_. I’m shup… _supposed_ to be mad at you. You know…do you have a fucking _clue_ how weird that is?”

“John, it’s all right.”

“ _No, SHH_ ,” John said, louder. He glared at Sherlock, then smiled at him in a not nice way. “No no no, you _don’t_ know. You don’t. I was mad at…at _everything_ , after Afghanish—istan. I was mad at Harry. I’m shtill— _still_ mad at her. Was mad at my leg, too. Mad add it, my own leg, my own _bloody_ leg. _Pissed_ that I couldn’t go back to the army. My therapist, the bloody machines in the super, mad at everything. It…It _stayed_ , being angry always _stayed_ , ‘nd I never showed it, never ever, never ever showed it, never ever let me be like dad, no, but it was always _there_. It was _con_ stantly there, ‘til you showed up. You piss me off all the time, for fuckin’ little things, but it never _stays_. Why’s it _you?_ ”

He looked desperately at Sherlock, now looking for an answer instead of silence. Sherlock’s mouth had fallen open a little, but then he cautiously took a step forward and placed a steadying hand on John’s arm.

“John. You’re drunk,” Sherlock said calmly. “Now isn’t the time—”

John lunged forward and pulled Sherlock’s mouth to his own, attempting to catch the answer hiding behind the man’s teeth, where that rapid-fire tongue lived—its answers tasted like home, like Baker Street in an undefinable way, like pipe smoke and cardamom. Sherlock made a strangled noise and attempted to fall backwards out of the kiss, his shoulders colliding into the doorframe and arms flailing for balance. John pushed him against the frame and held him there. He dove into that mouth like a dangerously dehydrated man dove into a desert well, unsure whether he’d meet water or scorpions but with desperate, desperate hope.

A second later, Sherlock moaned, and then John felt the brief flicker of an answering tongue. To John, it was like the music and touch of a cool, beautiful splash.

Sherlock abruptly pushed John off, keeping one hand on John’s shoulder to steady him and to hold him at arm’s distance. He turned his head and wiped his mouth on his sleeve, grimacing. Carefully, he studied John a moment, gaze flickering up and down, eyebrows furrowed. John gazed back at him open-mouthed, face still warm with alcohol and kissing, his mind still slogging through inebriated time.

“Remind me,” Sherlock started, voice sounding rough. “Not to kiss you when you’re drunk. You slobber like a bulldog in heat.”

“Woof,” John agreed pleasantly.

“Quite right,” Sherlock said with a small, wavering smirk that quickly died. “Get in. Go to sleep,” he said, directing John with a nod of his head toward the leftside bed.

John stumbled through and fell on top of the mattress, muttering, “Y’know, that’s nice. Why’d we never do that?”

Sherlock paused, then pulled off John’s shoes, electing to leave the rest of John’s apparel intact. He settled on his own bed, stretching out. He pressed his palms together and hovered his fingertips just above his lips, as though afraid to touch them.

“John, you won’t remember this in the morning, will you?” he asked, but the only answer he received was John’s soft, even breathing, gone already to sleep.

 

* * *

 

[8] Russian translations:

 _Moi druz’ya_ = My friends

 _Za vas!_ = To you (formal or plural form [at least I hope it is])! (A Russian toast)

 _Davayte vyp'yem za uspekh nashego dela!_ = Let us drink to the success of our business/project! (Another Russian toast)

 _Za lyubov’_ = To love! (Yet another Russian toast)

 _Za khozyayku etogo doma!_ = To the hostess of the house! (Yet again.)

 

 _The Not-Really-Learn-A-Thing Corner_ :

Well, other than introducing you to some Russian toasts, I really don't have much for this chapter, I'm afraid.  There's not much to say about eggnog.  (Eggnog.  It exists.  Traditionally it was made with raw eggs!  Beyond that, though, nothing interesting.)  BUT SOMETHING ELSE I WANT YOU TO BEHOLD WITH YOUR EYES--I'VE FOUND MUMMY HOLMES AND ICE QUEEN!SHERLOCK IN ART THAT IS NOT CONNECTED TO THIS FIC AT ALL!

First of all, look at Mummy here in [this link](http://naihaan.deviantart.com/art/Snow-Maiden-342462202).  Most Snegurochka/Snow Maiden art I've found doesn't really match up with my mental image of Mummy Holmes, but then I found THIS ONE AND DEAR GOD IT'S PERFECT.  SO PERFECT.

Second of all, just...just look at this beauty that is [Frozenlock](http://ymymy.deviantart.com/art/Frozen-Elock-Sherlsa-443527580).  So majestic, wah, like mother like son.  In my mind, I think of these two pictures as family portraits and I just wanted to share their beauty with you.  <3


	9. Reindeer and Bath Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N** : Just a quick shout-out to two peeps--Shaindy, for looking through a good chunk of this chapter more than once, and Elisabeth for helping me make the Dutch in Chapter 5 more natural/authentic! Thanks you two! :D

John’s head was throbbing. He was reluctant to move.

“Water to your left,” said Sherlock, somewhere in the distance.

John cracked his eyes open and waited for his vision to register. He slowly turned his head to the left and spied the glass on the nightstand. He wasn’t quite ready to experiment with full body movement yet.

“The hell is in that eggnog?” he croaked instead.

“Ancient mystery,” Sherlock replied. “However, I suspect it’s intended to be related to _skáldskapar mjaðar_ in terms of potency.”

“ _What?_ ” John groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. “Please, Sherlock, I’m too hung-over for gibberish.”

“Old Norse, actually,” said Sherlock. John carefully sat up in bed and located his flatmate sitting by the fireplace, the List lying open across his thighs. Sherlock glanced in his direction at the sound of movement then looked back to the book. “The so-called ‘Mead of Poetry,’ a mythical beverage said to make anyone who drinks it into a poet or scholar, with the ability to recite any information and solve any question.” Sherlock smiled tightly, then added, “It was made from the blood of a murdered man—the wisest man in the world—and mixed with honey.”[9] He glanced over at John again, and upon seeing the hung-over and mystified look on his face, simply shrugged and said, “Was a favourite bedtime story of mine.”

John shook his head, realised that shaking his head was a bad idea, groaned, and took a drink of water. “Are you trying to tell me I drank Knowledge?”

Sherlock frowned. “No. Why? Are you feeling knowledgeable?”

John took another drink of water. “No, I feel like I got hit by a car.”

“Shame,” Sherlock muttered.

John carefully set himself to the task of getting up and going to the bath. While he slogged across the room, he mumbled, “Would’ve been good to know I was drinking mythic eggnog beforehand.”

“Didn’t realise you’d be so sensitive to it,” Sherlock replied. “Though I suppose your lack of mythical ancestry and genetic predisposition to alcoholism made you even weaker to it than the usual population who drinks it.”

“Yeah. Thanks. So helpful knowing that _now_.”

John entered the bathroom and winced at the fluorescent light—from what he’d seen, most of the North Pole complex was lit by oil lamp, candles, or fireplace, so the master bath lighting was a bit of an anachronism, most likely a later addition. He made use of the toilet, gave his face a bit of a cold splash, decided he still wasn’t alert enough to try shaving, then started the bath.

After he’d carefully ensconced himself in the warm water, sunken chest-deep in the bowl, he heard a knock at the door. He looked warily at it. “What?” he called.

Apparently taking that as permission to enter (which it wasn’t), Sherlock barged in. “How much do you remember of last night?” he asked, gazing at John with furrowed brows.

John reflexively pulled up his legs to shield himself, though Sherlock wasn’t near enough to see anything other than his head and shoulders. Then he processed the question. Nobody ever asked that unless he’d done something incredibly stupid. He sighed, leaned his head back against the bowl, and closed his eyes. “Well, I remember going to dinner of course. Being angry with you. Lots of toasts.”

“So you recall insulting my mother and in the next breath attempting to chat her up?” Sherlock asked.

John’s eyes snapped open. “Oh god, I did, didn’t I?” he breathed in horror. His headache returned with a vengeance and he buried his face in his hands. He sunk under the water and idly wondered if he could drown himself while he was at it.

Before he could get very far in his goal, he felt a hand yank on his hair and pull him back up. It did not help his headache.

“ _Ow_ , Sherlock!” he hissed, splashing him off.

Sherlock instantly let go, which sent John’s head thudding back against the bowl. Which also did not help. He groaned and sent Sherlock a venomous glare.

Sherlock raised his hands in a mollifying gesture. “I’d prefer it if you did not drown yourself, John,” he stated. “Especially considering I’d have to find somewhere else to sleep if you did so.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” John said stiffly. He belatedly remembered to pull his legs back up and looked into a space that was nowhere near Sherlock. “And…sorry. About the thing with your Mum. Jesus, I’ll have to apologise to her.”

Sherlock stood beside the tub, drumming his fingers against his leg. “You remember nothing else?”

John sighed and ran a wet hand through his hair. “Christ, what _else_ did I do?” he said, imagining the worst—spontaneous attempts at karaoke, most likely. God help them all.

Sherlock stared down at him. John fidgeted and double-checked that the important bits were sufficiently shielded. “Nothing,” Sherlock replied at last, before turning to the side and rubbing his hands together rapidly, igniting a ball of flame between them. He dropped to his knees and ducked.

John immediately peered over the side of the tub to see Sherlock blowing flamelets down underneath the tub, where the coal pit was resting dormant. “What do you mean, ‘nothing’? I must’ve done something, or you wouldn’t’ve asked. What are you doing?”

“What it looks like, John, adding heat to your bath water. The pipes here at best can get water on the hotter side of warm, but not hot. If you’re planning on a long bath the water will cool before you’re done.”

“Um, wasn’t especially planning on one, but thanks, I might do,” John said awkwardly. Sherlock was avoiding the initial question. That…wasn’t a good sign. He closed his eyes and rested his forearms against the tub’s rim, placing his chin on a wrist. “Sherlock.”

“Mm?” Sherlock replied distractedly.

“What did I do?”

He kept his eyes closed, waiting. Silence. Silence from Sherlock—the most unfathomable thing in existence. A queasy feeling erupted in his stomach. That could only mean something worse than impromptu karaoke. That was _definitely_ not a good sign.

He startled when he heard the sound of the door closing, and he opened his eyes to find that Sherlock had abandoned the room. He breathed out slowly and slumped back against the backrest of the tub.

What had he _done?_ What had he _said?_ What stupid, drunken, angry thing had he said to make Sherlock— _Sherlock_ —act like he had to walk on ingratiating eggshells around him?

He sunk backwards until his ears were submerged, drowning out the sound of silence with the amplified sound of his heart and lungs resonating through the heating water. It looked like he’d need a long bath after all, if only to gather up his courage to go back out to the bedroom later.

***

When he shuffled into the bedroom in a towel (in his hung-over state, he’d forgotten to bring a set of clothes with him), he was both surprised and relieved to find that Sherlock wasn’t there. He called for him, just in case he’d made himself magically invisible or something else he’d conveniently forgotten to tell John he could do, and after being sufficiently convinced Sherlock wasn’t there, changed and ventured out into the hallway.

Although he was only in the family wing, John could sense an odd sort of hush throughout the North Pole complex. He couldn’t begin to think of why—it’s not like there wasn’t work to be done, as his glance into the living room reminded him. And from the steady trickle of elves moving across the atrium, there still _was_ work being done, just…quietly. It put John a bit on edge—he’d never especially liked silences. Silences meant either nothing was happening or something was _about_ to happen but hadn’t yet, and he despised being in either situation.

He walked into the breakfast room to find Sherlock and his mother quietly talking over coffee, but as soon as John came in they stopped talking and looked at him. John felt immediately awkward.

He coughed a little and said, “Uh, morning.”

“Good morning, John. There are muffins,” said Mrs. Holmes.

Sherlock didn’t bother greeting him, probably because it’d be redundant, but he didn’t really look at him either.

John obediently went to the breakfast counter and picked out a piece of toast and some kind of strange white-chocolate-chip muffin that oddly smelled like citrus and roses; he didn’t especially have an appetite for the mountain of sausages and eggs that the elves had supplied. He poured himself a cup of tea and sat at the silent table.

After a few seconds, he sighed and turned to Mrs. Holmes. “Mum, I’m sorry about yesterday. That was rude of me.”

She patted his arm with a cold hand. “I am not offended, John. I’ve been thinking that I should have warned you ahead of time about the eggnog, so I offer my apologies as well.”

John made a soft hum of acknowledgement and very briefly put his hand over hers before moving it away. “We’re good then?”

“We are well,” she returned, taking her hand away. “It’s been perfectly pleasant having you here.”

John smiled at her and took a sip of tea. She smiled back a little.

Sherlock kicked him under the table, and John shifted a brief glare towards him. Sherlock nonchalantly sipped at his coffee and gazed out the dark window.

John took a bite of the strange muffin and was surprised at how tangy-sweet it was, the key lime and white chocolate blending together in a way he thought shouldn’t work but somehow did—it was like eating key lime pie except…muffiny, with a touch of roses. “Different,” he offered, when Mummy Holmes sent him a raised eyebrow, undoubtedly prompted by the baffled look on his face.

“You are not required to eat them,” she replied.

“No, it’s fine, just…not what I’m used to,” John said, taking another contemplative bite of the muffin. “So…the two of you’ve been catching up?” he asked, after swallowing.

“In a manner of speaking,” she replied, her face suddenly stretching in a warm, toothy smile as she looked over to her son.

Sherlock promptly stood up and went to the breakfast counter, retrieving another muffin and cup of coffee in the slowest manner possible. John watched him move warily, sensing his friend’s discomfort in the stiff way he held himself.

John cleared his throat and said, “It’s a bit quiet around here today.”

Mummy Holmes hummed in agreement as Sherlock returned with his coffee and muffin, setting his cup down a bit loudly. John blinked and raised an eyebrow at him. Sherlock just started eating his muffin silently.

“Is…there a reason for that?” John asked carefully, looking back to Mrs. Holmes.

“No,” said Sherlock, in the simultaneous moment when his mother said, “Yes.”

John looked from one to the other. Sherlock was sending his mother a rather annoyed look; Mummy looked absolutely not bothered.

“Yes,” she said again, which Sherlock immediately countered with a solid “ _No_.”

She turned her gaze to John. “As the official Gift-Giver, he’s inherently bound to the North Pole for the duration of his stay—an old fail-safe magically implanted in the title-bearer, which stops him from physically fleeing prematurely and similarly brings him back after a night’s job is complete—but it also tends to make him have a bit of an atmospheric effect on the place. He’s just being sullen; it puts a bit of a damper on things.”

“I’m not being _sullen_ , I’m _thinking_ ,” Sherlock retorted.

“You are thinking very sullenly, _kotenok_.”

Sherlock scowled and bit into his muffin again.

John awkwardly took a bite of his toast. He had a hugely worrying feeling that whatever it was, it was most likely his fault, but he didn’t exactly want to bring it up in front of Sherlock’s mother—though it was possible she knew about it already, considering that they’d gone dead silent when he’d entered the room. Truth be told, he didn’t really want to bring whatever-it-was up at all, but…if he’d done wrong to Sherlock somehow, he ought to apologise for it.

He drank his tea and silently thought, _Whatever it is, Sherlock, you can talk to me about it._

Sherlock’s gaze flickered to him, and he raised his eyebrows.

Mrs. Holmes suddenly turned to John and asked, “What are your plans for the day?”

“Um, I don’t know,” John said, caught off-guard and a bit unsettled by the piercing focus of her eyes. “Probably just more sorting through the applications. Not like they can sort _themsel—_ ”

“We’re going to see the reindeer,” Sherlock interrupted, polishing off his muffin.

“We are?” John said.

“Yes,” Sherlock stated.

“But I still have the—”

“Yes.”

“We can’t just—”

“We can and will, John. Unless you’d _really_ prefer spending the day doing _paperwork_ over visiting flying reindeer,” Sherlock returned, gulping back the remainder of his coffee.

John’s unease was eclipsed by a sudden gush of childlike glee. “The reindeer. You actually have the reindeer. And they fly?”

“Of course we have the reindeer, John.”

“But the List,” John reminded him half-heartedly.

“I’ve worked enough on it for one day. It’s tedious and dull. Come on, John.” Sherlock stood up and carried his and John’s mugs to the sink, despite John’s still having some tea in it.

John looked down at his half-eaten breakfast, then shoved the last bit of muffin in his mouth and stood up. “Guess we’ll see you later, Mrs. Holmes.”

“Call me ‘Mummy,’” she reminded him absently, picking up her customary book. “And try not to wear yourselves out,” she added cryptically, with the trace of a smile on her lips.

***

In complete silence, Sherlock took them down a corridor marked quite suitably with a reindeer over it. John pondered how he should bring up whatever the issue was; he’d never been especially good at handling this sort of thing, but he definitely wanted it resolved and it seemed like Sherlock wasn’t going to start the conversation no matter how many thought-vibes John sent his way to prod him into talking about it.

On reaching the end of the corridor, Sherlock perfunctorily opened a door into a large, chilly stable, with two lines of reindeer housed in a stall each. John quickly realised that he’d never actually seen a real reindeer before—the cartoons had had him believe they would look like regular forest deer, svelte and a sort of light brown colour. _These_ creatures were heavily furred with a grey-brown coat and a thick white ruff, with dark faces and noses occasionally marked with white on their heads. They made grunting noises on spotting the men.

“Normally we let them roam outside for most of the year,” Sherlock stated, going over to the nearest reindeer and petting its nose. It started shimmying from side to side, making high-pitched gleeful noises. “They’re rounded up again around the end of November, mostly so we know where they are when we need them. Not that they need much coaxing; they know we have food. Grab the bucket of carrots by the door.”

John looked next to his feet and spotted the convenient treat bucket, picking it up by the handle in one hand. He stood awkwardly, watching Sherlock pet the reindeer. He cleared his throat a little. “So…what’s this all about, then?”

“Mm?” Sherlock replied, not looking at him.

“Bringing me to see reindeer.”

Sherlock shrugged. “Just…passing the time.”

John took a deep breath and sighed it out. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

“I just did,” Sherlock returned, gaze fixed on the reindeer.

“From this morning,” John replied. When Sherlock didn’t say anything to that, he closed his eyes and said, “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Did I do or say anything to upset you?”

“Why should I be upset?” Sherlock asked blandly.

John turned to the side briefly, not really wanting to address the situation further but knowing he had to, and turned back. “Look, whatever I said—I know I was angry with you beforehand, but alcohol tends to make me a bit of an idiot, all right? We say things we don’t really mean.”

At that, Sherlock actually looked at him, his eyebrows furrowed. He made a contemplative humming noise and said, “Experience proves the opposite, actually.”

John sighed and lifted his eyes to the ceiling, then brought them back down. “Yes, all right, it makes people more honest, but it also makes them lack judgement. Whatever I said, Sherlock, can you just forget about it? It’s not like I’m sticking around just for the rent—god knows you more than make up for whatever discounts we get with damage fees anyway.”

Sherlock smiled tightly and turned back to the reindeer. “Pass me a carrot, John,” he rumbled.

John stepped forward and pressed a carrot into Sherlock’s outstretched hand. Sherlock jerked his chin towards a reindeer and said, “Go on. Introduce yourself to them.”

John waited a second more, concluded that they were apparently done talking about feelings for now, then turned and slowly approached a reindeer stall. The reindeer he was approaching had massive antlers—possibly the largest rack out of all of them—and he was admittedly a bit intimidated by it, especially since he had no clue how he was supposed to act around reindeer. Could they smell fear? Were you supposed to approach them from the side or something so they could see you coming? As he got closer, the reindeer suddenly lunged toward him, banging against the gate, and John jumped backwards.

“I don’t think it likes me,” he blurted out.

“Nonsense,” said Sherlock, suddenly—closely—beside him. “He’s just eager for carrots. Dasher, you impatient brute.” Sherlock pulled at John’s arm, bringing him closer to Dasher, then manually lifted up John’s other hand and smoothed out his palm so his hand lay flat and open. He smacked a carrot on top of it. “Just keep your fingers together and flat, you’ll be fine.”

Dasher stretched his neck across the gate, making a guttural keening noise. John carefully offered him the carrot, which the reindeer immediately began crunching at with gusto, furry lips brushing against John’s fingers, a bit like an overzealous puppy. John chuckled, rapidly becoming charmed by the reindeer’s enthusiasm, and set down the bucket to pet Dasher’s snout with his free hand. “Well now, there’s a good fellow. And they really do fly?” John asked, looking over his shoulder at Sherlock standing behind him.

“No, John, we just lock them up every December _for fun_ ,” Sherlock replied, turning back to his side of the stalls. “However, they can only fly on the necessary days. Wouldn’t be good camouflage if they flew all the time—imagine what the Russian military would do if they found them.”

John imagined it briefly, concluded that a flying Russian cavalry was definitely not good, then moved on to the next reindeer, which was jumping in place. “Hey there, now,” John muttered, trying to reach the reindeer’s mouth. “Settle down. Is it supposed to do that?” John asked, pointing at the cheerfully jumping reindeer, which had finally managed to settle a bit and nibble at the carrot.

“That’s Prancer. Toss me a carrot.”

John turned and threw a carrot in Sherlock’s direction, which Sherlock effortlessly caught without looking. He saw that Sherlock had moved on to the next stall, which had a somewhat slim and smaller reindeer in it. “And that one?” John asked.

“Vixen. She’s small, but she pulls harder than all of the males.”

“It’s a female?” John asked, eyeing the antlers.

“Reindeer have antlers on both sexes.”

John came to the conclusion that the first reindeer Sherlock had fed was inevitably Dancer, and he glanced over to find that the reindeer in question was bobbing his head and...possibly moonwalking, it looked like. John’s grin widened, and he named them in head, going back and forth across the lines. Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cup—

A sudden thunderous booming noise came from one of the far stalls, and John reflexively fell backwards, thinking they were being bombed.

“ _DONNER, YOU INSUFFERABLE PRIMA DONNA_ ,” Sherlock bellowed, hurrying over to the far stall to shush at and pet the restless Donner into stillness. “Sorry, John. The lout can’t stand being ignored for too long. Pass a carrot when you can.”

John took a moment to catch his breath and remember where he was, then burst out laughing. Sherlock looked over, raising a pair of white eyebrows. “That sounds like somebody I know,” John said in between giggles. Sherlock glared at him. John got up from the haydusty floor and brushed himself off, then threw another carrot at Sherlock, who once again caught it.

Cupid was making annoyed grunting noises and shifting about in his stall, clearly displeased that he’d been skipped over for Donner. John took pity on the reindeer and went over to the stall with the bucket of dwindling carrots. He offered Cupid the vegetable, which the reindeer took politely, watching John with shining black eyes. John noted idly that Cupid seemed to have a bit of a lopsided white heart on his forehead, and he smiled and stroked at the mark briefly.

Beside him, Sherlock shifted to the side and picked up the carrot bucket, then moved away to feed the other two reindeer on the other side of the stalls. John patiently waited for Cupid to finish nibbling at the carrot, and when he had, the reindeer butted his nose into John’s hand.

“I haven’t got any more,” John told him. Cupid lurched forward and butted at John’s chest, and John flailed backwards to avoid the antlers. The reindeer then turned his head and nudged at John’s right shoulder with his antlers, as though to herd John towards... John looked over his left shoulder and saw Sherlock feeding Blitzen.

John looked back at Cupid and glared. “Now you listen here,” John whispered lowly. “I get enough of this sort of thing back home, and I’m already getting more than enough of it _here_. So I don’t need it from a bleeding antlered matchmaker, thank you.”

Cupid just made a grunting deer noise, which John decided to pretend was acquiescence. He nodded and turned sharply, going to stand next to Sherlock.

“You have to be more cautious with Blitzen, John,” Sherlock stated, scratching between Blitzen’s eyes. “If he loses his temper, which is often, he tends to stamp electric sparks out of his hooves.” He nodded to the stall next to Blitzen’s. “Comet, on the other hand, is the most docile. Him and Vixen, I should think, they’re the most dignified out of this lot.” Blitzen snorted into Sherlock’s hand, and Sherlock turned a scowl upon the reindeer. “Shut up, you know it’s a fact.”

John stared at Comet and thought he was the most stunning reindeer he’d ever seen. Which wasn’t many reindeer, granted, but the beast was pure white, with fur that seemed to faintly shimmer as Comet shifted forward and stared right back at John with dark eyes that glittered as though filled with stars.

“Wow. You are magnificent,” John murmured to the reindeer, which majestically lowered his head once in a bow. John stroked at the fur of his muzzle and shook his head in wonder, a grin permanently fixed to his face. “They all are, Sherlock, they’re amazing.” He looked over to see Sherlock watching him with a small, tight smile in place.

“They are admittedly fascinating animals,” Sherlock agreed. “More companionable than the elves, at any rate. They don’t blather on with questions about the so-called ‘delights’ of a world they’ve never seen.” The last he said with a touch of cynicism in his tone. “Describe an iPhone to them once, and they never shut up about it,” he muttered.

“The elves don’t know about the rest of the world?” John asked, scratching lightly along Comet’s neck.

Sherlock shook his head. “Not for a long time, before either you or I were born. One of my predecessors undoubtedly decided that technology had become too advanced and endangered the security of their existence. If people had photographic evidence of the existence of mythical beings, they would seek to exploit such a resource—the elves are unquestionably trusting by nature, John, as I’m sure you could tell. They’d never survive in the real world. So they were asked to stay here, and they’ve kept their word. Thus they live out their lives in a reasonable amount of self-sustainability, making toys and sweets to occupy their time, for what they believe is a meaningful and noble cause, and they go on naively believing the world is made of candy canes and gumdrops.” He sighed. “Such uncomplicated minds. They don’t make for very scintillating conversation. If I could’ve had a hand in the creation of this absurd tradition, I would have staffed the workshops with criminals and thieves; they’d perhaps be more imaginative.”

“Have you ever thought about telling them what the world is really like?” John asked, frowning as he considered the irony of having the residents of the most mythical place on Earth think that the rest of the world was actually the mythical wonderland. Something about it rubbed him the wrong way.

“I doubt they would believe me,” Sherlock replied. “I tried to tell an elf once when I was younger about what a ‘bully’ was, and he thought I was making it up.”

John’s eyebrows lifted as he looked at his friend, who was carefully yet casually not making eye contact as he continued to pet Blitzen. John cleared his throat slightly, and, after a moment, smiled and asked, “So, you don’t have a Rudolph then?”

“Oh, we do,” Sherlock replied, then frowned and looked to the back, where there was apparently an empty stall. “He might be sleeping. Wait here a moment, John,” he said, briefly squeezing at John’s arm before moving to the front entrance of the stable, finding a light switch, and flipping it off.

The stable plunged into semi-darkness, where the only light things in the room seemed to be Comet’s ghostly shimmer, Sherlock’s bouncing white curls coming back towards John, and, at the back of the stable, a bright green and red glow. John felt Sherlock’s hand on his elbow again, tugging him gently towards the farthest stall. They looked in.

Sleeping in a nest of hay was a young reindeer with a small set of antlers, whose fur was glowing neon green in the dark with one bright red dot for a nose.

“Oh my god,” John whispered, grinning widely. “Is that...?”

“Rudolph is Mycroft’s contribution to the collection,” Sherlock rumbled beside him. “Had him secretly commissioned from Baskerville. Still fairly young in magical reindeer years.”

John just started giggling. Sherlock joined in with his characteristic baritone chuckle, and they found themselves resting comfortably with their arms on the stall gate, shoulder-to-shoulder, elbows touching. Staring down at the fluorescent reindeer, John wondered how his life had become so interesting and exciting, all due to the man standing at ease next to him—John felt alive, and he actually, physically, constantly knew it.

“John,” said Sherlock, in a low, conspiratorial, somewhat closer-than-usual tone. John turned his head to see that Sherlock had bent his head to match John’s sightline; he was smiling playfully, face mostly in shadow, with Rudolph’s green-red glow tinting the white of his hair and the side of one cheek. “Do you want to race them?”

Excitement fluttered in his chest, and he returned Sherlock’s grin. “We can race them? Really? Isn’t it fifty below outside or something?”

“Yes,” said Sherlock, “but it’s easy enough to fetch you some arctic gear to wear. Besides, it’s not like we’ve got anything better to do.” John was about to protest that point, but Sherlock had set off with a sprint towards the stable entrance, flicking the light back on as he went out and turned left.

John stood there feeling giddy, like he was about to go on his first roller coaster. He drummed his fingers on Rudolph’s gate and then walked down the row of reindeer again, eyeing them up to see which one he wanted to race. The reindeer looked back at him expectantly.

Before he knew it, Sherlock had returned with an enormous bag stuffed with winter clothing in one hand and two pairs of skis in the other. He threw the bag in John’s direction, which landed with a heavy thud and spilled out a musty, double-lined fur parka, modern-looking boots, fur mitts, a balaclava, snow goggles, and two pairs of skiing trousers.

“Put those on while I ready the deer,” Sherlock said, setting the skis against the wall for the moment. “Which one do you want?”

“Comet,” John said, not even thinking about it. “What about you, though? You’re not exactly prepared to go out just like that.”

“Oh, I’ll be fine, John. Being a semi-mythical being for the present tends to make one immune to the worst of the cold,” he replied, going to a wall where some reins were hanging up.

John struggled into both sets of skiing trousers then laced up the boots, stuffing the ends of the trousers into the boots. He looked up to see that Sherlock had apparently chosen Dasher as his racer, since he was leading the reindeer out and attempting to fasten reins around his head. John pulled the parka over his head and immediately felt exceedingly warm. He then pulled on the balaclava, fixed the goggles over his eyes, pulled up the hood of the parka, and tightened it closed. Lastly, he put on the gloves, just as Sherlock finished getting Comet out of the stall and set up.

John pulled down the fabric of his balaclava a little so that his mouth was free. “I feel like a marshmallow,” he said, shuffling over to where Sherlock was guiding the reindeer—a currently locked sideways-rolling door, presumably leading to the outside. “Are you sure you’ll be ok like that?” John asked, eyeing Sherlock’s admittedly impressive winterized Belstaff, a scarf that he could’ve sworn was blue at one point but had somehow become bright red, and a pair of gloves.

“Stop worrying, John. If I say it’s fine, it’s fine. Wait here,” he said, jogging back to where he’d left the skis and bringing them back. He dropped a pair by John’s feet. “Get into these skis. You’ve been skiing before, correct?”

John vaguely remembered a family holiday in Switzerland and learning the basics there.

“Excellent,” Sherlock replied, strapping into his own skis.

John blinked. “You’ve _got_ to stop doing that,” he said, managing to strap into the skis even with his mitts on.

“Why?” said Sherlock with a mild frown. “Conversations are more expedient this way, as you’ve been trying to demonstrate all day.”

John rolled his eyes. “Right then, so how does this work?”

Sherlock carefully moved forward, picked up Comet’s reins, then brought them back to John. “Same as with a horse. Go right by pulling right, left by left, stop by pulling back, make them go by flicking the reins. Squat a bit on your skis, though, and pretend you’re like a horse jockey. And most importantly, hang on.”[10] He shuffled toward the rolling door, unlocked the padlock, and pulled it back with a grunt.

A huge gust of arctic air flooded into the stable, and John looked out into the dark landscape with the Northern Lights arching overhead. He was suddenly quite grateful he was wearing multiple layers. Sherlock pulled the reindeer forward out into the snow, where they became slightly jittery, and then moved back to where John was at the threshold to the stable.

“Do you see that light in the distance?” Sherlock said over the roar of the wind, pointing.

John squinted and saw a white, bright light about one hundred meters away. He pulled up his balaclava again and nodded.

“It’s the North Pole,” Sherlock said. “We’ll race there and back. Are you ready?”

John nodded again and squatted down into position; Sherlock did the same beside him.

“Then ready...steady...GO!”

John flicked the reins, and Comet took off like a...well, like a comet. John briefly struggled to keep his balance, quickly learning to hold his posture and his legs in a tighter position, and then held on. He glanced to his side to see that Sherlock and Dasher were already pulling far ahead, Sherlock’s flyaway curls blowing every which way, and John could’ve sworn he heard the git laughing. John flicked the reins again, and Comet ran a bit faster, his white fur seeming to gleam and leave a shimmering trail behind him in his wake.

It was the craziest thing John had ever done. Well, maybe the second-craziest. Or possibly the third-craziest. Either way, it was crazy and thrilling, and just like the other two craziest moments in his life, it was brought to him by Sherlock Holmes, who was now quite ahead of John and Comet, his coat billowing behind him. John urged Comet on, flicking the reins almost constantly, and lost himself in the torrent of arctic air gushing past him, the tight grip of the reins in his hands, the force of the reindeer’s pull working on his shoulders and back and thighs, the dance of the aurora overhead, and the light and breathless feeling of joy beneath his ribs.

At the beacon of the North Pole, Sherlock swerved about-face in a dramatic, snow-showering whirl worthy of a Roman charioteer and went thundering past John, laughing openly. John cursed and pulled a hard right on Comet, not even bothering to reach the Pole, and encouraged his reindeer to go faster, shouting, “C’mon, you wanna give those show-offs a run for their money or dontcha?”

John couldn’t be sure if the reindeer heard him, since he was trying to shout through the fabric of a balaclava, but nonetheless Comet surged forward in a sprint, pulling up close behind Sherlock and Dasher. The bright yellow square of the stable door was approaching fast, and John was just an arm’s length away from the fluttering tail of Sherlock’s coat.

“John, brake!” Sherlock shouted, yanking hard on his reins.

John pulled on the reins and briefly forgot how to stop his skis, colliding into Comet’s rump and falling over into the snow. Comet startled and ran into the stable, and thankfully John had the presence of mind to let go of the reins.

Sherlock was beside him in an instant. “John! Are you all right?!”

John just giggled. Sherlock looked relieved, returned John’s smile, and helped detach the skis from John’s boots. He offered John a hand up.

“I thought you knew how to stop,” Sherlock said with a chuckle.

“I _do_ know, I just forgot,” John replied.

Sherlock picked up his own pair of skis, which he’d apparently removed before running to John, and started to lead Dasher back inside. “You also cheated.”

“Damn right I did,” John replied, gathering his own skis. “You’ve clearly done this before. Ever heard of cutting a novice some slack?”

“Never,” Sherlock said with a teasing smirk.

This for some reason just set John off again, his chuckles evolving into a full belly laugh. “You absolute git, I demand a rematch,” he breathed, once he’d caught his breath.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Sherlock rumbled, grinning. “I’m calling Vixen.”

“Ah, damn,” John muttered. “I wanted that one. Fine, I’m calling Cupid.”

They managed another two rounds, switching out Vixen and Cupid for Dancer and Prancer, respectively. Sherlock won all the races, much to John’s competitive dismay, though he fancied he got better at driving reindeer with each turn; when he tried to insist on a third race with the two remaining adult deer, Sherlock point-blank stated that Donner and Blitzen were too temperamental for John to handle yet.

“You’re just worried that I’m actually getting good at this,” John retorted.

“John, your skills as an amateur reindeer racer are quite possibly the least threatening hazard to my self-esteem,” Sherlock countered, pulling the outside door closed and locking it.

John ripped off his hood and balaclava to breathe in the cold air easier and looked to Sherlock, whose ears and cheeks had reddened with the cold. He cleared his throat, smiled, and said with a bit of a chuckle, “That was absolutely childish and possibly the most fun I’ve had in years.”

“More fun than the Barton murders?” Sherlock replied as he put the reindeer back in their stalls and removed the reins.

John considered. “Well, no one got decapitated, for one thing, so I suppose that gives reindeer racing a bit of an edge.”

“Pah!” Sherlock disagreed, the skin around his eyes crinkling in amusement.

As John began dismantling his layers of winter gear, a sudden weariness overcame him, making his limbs feel heavy. He pulled off his last boot and fitted himself back into his regular shoes with a yawn. “God, I’m so tired all of a sudden,” he yawned again.

Sherlock brushed some snow from his clothes and said, “Your circadian rhythm hasn’t adjusted to twenty-four hour darkness yet, John. Your body believes you should be asleep.” He suddenly grimaced a little and rubbed at one of his temples.

John frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, the usual. Aggressively cheerful carollers and whinging children.” He sighed. “There’s only so long I can put it off before the backlog overflows—I’ll have to return to checking the List soon.”

John’s frown deepened as Sherlock winced again. “Maybe we can just grab a plate or something from the dining hall, then take it back to the room with us,” he suggested.

“Fine,” Sherlock agreed, still rubbing at his head.

After John had given each of the reindeer a pat—and an extra apologetic pat to Comet for running into him earlier—they made their way to the dining hall, where John assembled a large plate of food while Sherlock apologised to Mummy for not being able to stay, claiming List duties as his excuse. She seemed to take the news as impassively as ever and wished them both a good evening. John, somehow managing to balance a heavy plate of alfredo pasta and two large glasses of water on his own because Sherlock didn’t offer to help carry anything, was trying and failing to stifle yawns. He nearly collided into the mistletoe lock except for the fact that Sherlock had stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Kiss first, John,” Sherlock reminded him.

John sighed and shuffled the food and water he was holding so that it was out of the way, his arms stretched to either side as though expecting a hug. He tilted his head upwards and closed his eyes. “Right, go on.”

Sherlock pressed his lips chastely to John’s, and the first thought that flitted through John’s mind was _Jesus Christ he’s fucking freezing_. John instinctively jerked his head back, only to discover to his horror that Sherlock’s lips had frozen to his own. They stared in wide-eyed panic at each other.

“Jsuschrstmrphmrphmrph,” John said.

“Mrphermmrph,” said Sherlock.

John closed his eyes, gathered his courage, then opened his mouth a bit and just breathed into Sherlock’s mouth, hoping to transfer some of the warmer, humid air to Sherlock’s goddamn subzero skin. It worked only partially, liberating John’s lower lip, and in a desperate bid for freedom, John ran his tongue along the crease between their upper lips, drawing a surprised gasp from Sherlock. At last, their mouths separated, and John pulled back with a fierce blush to find Sherlock staring wide-eyed and pink-cheeked back at him.

“What the _hell_ , Sherlock? Why are you so fucking cold?!”

“We were outside,” Sherlock mumbled.

“ _Jesus_ , get yourself in front of that fireplace this instant. You’re not supposed to _be_ that cold!” John commanded, shuffling inside and setting the food on the vanity.

Sherlock scuffled in and let John direct him into a fireplace armchair, whereupon John immediately took Sherlock’s quilt off the bed and draped it on top of him.

“I’m honestly fine, John, you needn’t worry,” Sherlock said quietly. “I’m the son of a former snow spirit and am currently this year’s Father Christmas; my body temperature adapts to the climate. It’s part of the deal.”

“I don’t bloody care if you can walk on water—”

“I can’t.”

“—you’re not allowed to be that cold, not on my watch,” John said stubbornly, flinging off the top cover from his own bed and settling it on top of Sherlock. He stomped back to the vanity and retrieved the plate of pasta, putting it forcibly into Sherlock’s hands. “Now eat something.”

Sherlock obediently lifted the fork and put a fettuccini noodle in his mouth, watching John warily. John sighed and retrieved a glass of water, setting it beside Sherlock’s chair.

“And, uh, I’m sorry about the…tongue thing,” John said, feeling his cheeks warm anew. “Springing it on you and all that.”

“It’s...fine, John. I understood your motives,” Sherlock said, reaching down for the glass so they could continue to avoid making eye contact.

“Right. Good. ...Right,” John said, retrieving his own glass and taking the chair next to Sherlock.

They each sipped at their waters in silence and didn’t look at each other.

John hesitantly glanced in Sherlock’s direction and noticed that he wasn’t eating the pasta. He sighed and stretched out a hand. “Mind if I have a bit of that?” he asked.

“Yes fine,” Sherlock said in a rush, handing it over instantly.

John ate at the pasta in silence, waiting for some of the panicked adrenaline to ebb, but he left a Sherlock-sized portion on the plate and handed it back. “Are you feeling any warmer?” he asked.

“Positively temperate,” Sherlock rumbled, picking at the dregs of pasta.

John smiled a bit, relieved, and said, “Well, um, I’m thinking I’ll get ready for bed. So you just eat that, then.”

“All right,” Sherlock replied absently, and John left to brush his teeth.

When he returned, he was pleased to find that the plate was empty and resting on the vanity. Sherlock was still seated in front of the fireplace, though now he had the gigantic book resting on his knees again.

“Back to work, then?” John commented.

“Yes.”

“A lot left?”

Sherlock shrugged noncommittally.

“Well, be sure to sleep at some point.”

“Yes.”

John hesitated as he approached his bed. “Just to be clear, earlier, that was—”

“Yes.”

“Okay then. Goodnight, Sherlock,” John said, nestling under the remaining sheet and turning on his side away from the glow of the fireplace. Yet despite his exhaustion from the races, he was still wide awake. He fidgeted. The air in the room felt dry, probably because of the fire burning behind the grate, and he idly wondered if he should risk crossing the awkwardness in the room again to get another glass of water. He heard Sherlock turn a page in the book.

“Don’t dehydrate yourself on my account,” Sherlock said.

John sighed and looked over his shoulder, briefly contemplating the profile of Sherlock’s face as he sat by the fireplace. The light made the tips of Sherlock’s curls look as though they were little flames. “You know, it’s a bit creepy when you do that.”

Sherlock paused mid-strike across a name. “Oh. You didn’t say that out loud.”

“No. You really _can_ hear everything I’m thinking, can’t you?”

“Yes.”

John turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling, twiddling his thumbs as he let that thought sink in a little more and worry him. He listened with pricked ears to the soft papery sounds of Sherlock categorising. Sherlock had told him that he gained mental peace from the rest of the world being inside his head by focussing on either John or sugar plums; John had no way of knowing how often Sherlock was using that particular coping mechanism. He also had no idea how much Sherlock had heard of his own thoughts for the past couple of days—though considering Sherlock’s snide outburst at dinner the other day, which John was dreadfully remembering had _actually_ happened, he was probably safer assuming the worst. John bit his lip, then asked, “Was it something I thought?”

Sherlock very audibly stopped making noise for a moment. “What do you mean, John?”

“The thing that’s bothering you,” John clarified. “Was it something I thought?”

In the pause that ensued, John couldn’t muster up any courage to look away from the ceiling.

“No, John,” Sherlock said at last, turning a page. “You’ve neither said nor thought anything to disturb me.”

John sighed in relief. “Good. That’s good. ‘Cause you know thoughts don’t…yeah, you know they don’t mean much, really. You’ve got over a billion of other people’s thoughts to know that, right?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said flatly, sounding annoyed.

“Right. Glad we got that straightened away, then,” John said, briefly fluffing his pillow and settling back down, his initial weariness at last catching up to him in full without the interference of worry or adrenaline. “G’night, Sherlock.”

“Good night, John,” Sherlock replied.

Several minutes later, once John had been safely lulled into the oblivious spell of sleep, Sherlock quietly shut the book and set it on the floor. He lifted his hands to steeple them in front of his mouth, then paused, pulling his fingertips apart. He placed one hand on the armrest of his chair, but with the other, he carefully lifted two fingers and briefly pressed them to his lips, wincing slightly. His eyebrows knit together, and with stubborn determination, he again pressed his fingertips against his lips, holding them there. Blinking rapidly, with his mouth pulling a heavy frown, Sherlock stared into the fire with a pained expression etched into his furrowed brow, as though he’d discovered a blistering burn and knew not from whence it came.

* * *

 

[9] From Norse mythology—the Mead of Poetry ( _skáldskapar mjaðar_ ) is pretty much what Sherlock described it as. Some further details from that story include: the murdered wise man was named Kvasir, who was made from the spit of the gods (and who has a Norwegian search engine named after him). Also, the Mead is often associated with **Odin** , who stole it at some point or another in the Mead’s history—as you might remember, one of the pre-Christian incarnations of the winter Gift-Giver was the god Odin, which is how Sherlock has knowledge of this particular beverage and how it might be intertwined with the North Pole’s ancient recipes.

[10] I’ve based the style of reindeer racing seen here mostly off how they appear to do reindeer racing in Finland.  Behold [the demo vid](http://youtu.be/dVlEM9N6ZEc?t=1m13s)! Contrary to what you might expect, most reindeer are not that big! So people can’t really ride them like horses or anything (I think there’s a certain group in Mongolia that does, but the Mongols, as always, are the exception).


	10. Faith and Fulfilment

Sherlock was gone. 

Which shouldn’t’ve disoriented John as badly as it did, because it isn’t as though Sherlock was there every morning at Baker Street, and it wasn’t as though John literally woke up to the sight of his flatmate in his bedroom every morning either, but he’d just gotten so used to it over the past few days that the absence felt unnerving.

He got ready for the day and headed toward the breakfast room to find it empty—apart from a few dishes of steaming sausages, tea, and a solitary strawberry muffin, that is. Awkwardly, he sat down to his quiet breakfast and wondered where the Holmeses had gone—were they avoiding him? Was there some kind of unannounced event that Sherlock had conveniently forgotten to warn him about? There hadn’t been any notes left for him telling him what was going on or where to find them.

Finishing breakfast, John wandered into the atrium, noting the odd, still atmosphere that lingered from yesterday. John glanced at the tree that had yet to go up in flames, then stopped a passing elf.  “Excuse me, do you know where Sherlock or Mrs. Holmes is?”

“Reckon I don’t, John Watson,” said the elf, shuffling a few rolls of gift wrap to his other arm. “My Toula in the kitchens said they was up for breakfast, but beyond that I canna say.”

“All right, well, thanks anyway—do you…need any help with that?” John offered, just as the elf began to move away.

“Nah, ‘preciate the offer, though, John Watson,” replied the elf, shuffling away.

John stood in the atrium, debating whether he should try asking someone else, then decided that in any case he had work that he needed to do to make up for the lost time.

He shuffled into the living room and sat down in the little circle of clear space he’d designated for himself. Casting a scrutinising eye towards Tim the Plumber’s application, he pursed his lips in concentration. Sherlock had told him to think about _why_ he’d set Tim apart from the others.

He cocked his head and looked across his merging piles. Although Sherlock had rightly pointed out that he was subconsciously biasing the ‘Extreme Yes’ end with medical-related miracles, John thought that he had been more consciously sorting the applicants based on the urgency of the miracle—if lives were in immediate danger, or if there was a specific time limit the miracle needed to be completed before it became invalid. Which had been why John had put Tim’s application to the side—nothing about Tim’s situation was urgent.

But was urgency the primary factor he wanted to go with? If that were the case, he could just pick out the twelve applicants that were closest to expiring and go with them.

Except that idea left a sour taste in his mouth. That method worked well on the battlefield and the ER, but _this_ job was about more than just saving lives and getting things done quickly—it was about spreading happiness, and ‘first come, first serve’ wasn’t really a fair way to deliver a miracle.

Yet Sherlock had clearly seen something in John’s organisational method that was worthwhile, though he’d also said he wouldn’t interfere with John’s ‘system,’ which was bollocks. Sherlock Holmes interfered at the drop of a hat if he felt like it, and he was definitely interfering even if it was in a roundabout way. It was almost certainly a test.

John huffed and picked up a new application. He didn’t especially like being ‘tested,’ but he _did_ want to prove he could do this on his own. Besides, there was no guarantee that whatever direction Sherlock might be trying to guide him was even the right one—at least not by John’s standards. Therefore the best he could do at the moment was keep going as is and see if any other patterns emerged which might give him a better means to narrow it down. He skimmed the application in his hand.

The Islingtons wanted their beloved dog Moxie to come home safe after escaping from them one day at the park. Moxie had accidentally trapped herself in someone’s garden shed while the person was out on holiday for a few weeks. John furrowed his brow and put the application in the Lower-Yes zone. Grabbed another.

James Parker, tour guide/interpreter, discreetly trying to pursue a romance with his lover Amin Toshkhani, postman, in Jammu. Except the neighbours were starting to suspect. Worse still, so were their landlords. They were getting vague hints and covert threats, once even a surprise knock at the door while they were innocently watching TV from an officer asking if there’d been “a disturbance.” James and Amin were debating emigrating but weren’t sure of their ability to get visas.

John sighed, shook his head, and placed the sheet in the Middle-Yes zone. He picked up another one with a sense of trepidation.

Yolanda and Juan—a fiery, on-again off-again middle-aged couple—currently separated by an ocean while Yolanda pursued an opera career in Venice just as Juan was trying to bust a drug cartel in Guerrero. Things were very much not going well for Juan at the moment. Things were going catastrophically bad for Juan, actually. He was in a hospital bed, thinking of their last argument, and he wanted to see Yolanda one more time. The doctors weren’t optimistic she’d make it in time, if they could get a hold of her to begin with.

John could feel his heart breaking with every line, and he _had_ to put that one in the Extreme Yes zone. He took a deep breath, reaching for the next one.

Kwong “John” Jun and Liang “Faith” Fei Yen, young Canadian couple in love, parents don’t approve and want them to marry someone from China instead, supposedly need a miracle to convince them otherwise. John nearly sighed with relief—finally, an application he could reject outright. It’d only taken him how many days to find one? He turned the application over facedown, far apart from the others, and felt immensely satisfied.

“Sorry you two,” he said to the application, picking up another one with a renewed sense of vigour. “But I know you can work that one out on your own.”

“Congratulations,” said Sherlock.

John blinked in surprise and looked over his shoulder. “There you are,” John said, briefly looking him over in case there was something he could ‘deduce’ about his flatmate’s unexplained absence. Nope. Sherlock looked utterly normal. “Where have you been?”

Sherlock shrugged. “Around,” he replied, walking around the paper pile to pick up the single discard.

“What about your mum?” John asked, squinting suspiciously. “She was missing this morning too.”

“She’s also been around,” Sherlock said, raising an eyebrow at the application as he read it. “What made you discard this one?”

“If John and Faith want to marry each other badly enough, they’ll do it with or without their parents’ blessing. They just have to buck up a little courage, and that’s not something you can give to people, they have to find it on their own. Besides, there’s nothing in Canadian law that says they can’t.”

“Other than an age limit and consanguinity issues.”

“I didn’t miss that, did I?”

“No.”

“Then that’s settled,” John said with a smile.

“Indeed,” Sherlock said, returning the smile and setting the paper facedown on the floor again. “Though you tend to be a romantic, John, so I applaud you on finally distancing yourself from your task.”

“Thought you said I was a realist,” John countered, raising an eyebrow.

“I said you were an idiot.”

John chuckled under his breath, then picked up a new sheet, looking at it without reading it. “So I take it the two of you were ‘around’ together, then?” he asked as nonchalantly as possible.

“Safe presumption. Family matter,” Sherlock rumbled, absently running his hand across the back of a chair, roughing the grain of the fur the wrong way.

“Oh,” John said, briefly looking up then back down again, feeling a tad guilty for being nosy. It was understandable that Sherlock and his mother would want to talk about things without John butting in. Maybe about Sherlock’s father or something…yeah, there was no need for John to witness any sort of private sentiments they might be discussing. He should’ve guessed that would be the case.

Sherlock cleared his throat.  “I should let you get on with your work. And I suppose I should…get back to mine.”

John hummed and nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on the paper in his hand. When he realised that Sherlock wasn’t making a move to leave, he looked up to find Sherlock staring down at him with a somewhat impatient expression on his face. John realised his error immediately.

“Oh! Oh, right. The List’s in the…room, and—yeah, sorry,” he stammered, getting to his feet and stretching out the stiffness in his joints.

Sherlock just sighed despairingly through his nose and swept past him like a dark cloud. John followed.

Once they reached the rune-scribed door, they stared at each other. Sherlock shoved his hands in his coat pockets.

“John, I’m about to—”

“Yeah, I know,” John said. “You don’t need to say it every time.”

Sherlock furrowed his eyebrows. “You told me you wanted a warning.”

John looked to the side briefly, tilted his head, then nodded. “Yes, I know, Sherlock, but I’m sort of expecting it now. The warning’s become a bit redundant.”

John didn’t think it was possible, but Sherlock scrunched his eyebrows together _even more_. “So, it’s…”

John nodded again, slowly and deliberately. “ _Yes_ , it’s fine. Go ahead and kiss me.”

Sherlock paused, then took a step forward, ducked his head, and planted a small one on him, immediately pulling back. He pressed his lips together in a mild frown and awkwardly pat John on the shoulder. “Good man, John,” he said, and stepped into the bedroom.

John watched him stoop for the book on the floor by the right fireplace chair. “You’ll be all right in there?”

“Of course I’ll be all right. Why wouldn’t I be?” Sherlock retorted, folding himself into the chair.

“Point,” John muttered to himself. “Guess I’ll see you later,” he added, half-wishing he could stay for the company but knowing he’d really have nothing to do while Sherlock was List-checking. Sherlock just grunted in reply.

He turned and walked back, only to find that Mrs. Holmes had appeared in the living room, where she was sitting in one of the armchairs and knitting something.

“Oh, afternoon, Mum,” John said, stepping down into the room.

“Good afternoon, John,” she returned evenly. “I thought you could do with some company as you worked.”

“Yes, absolutely,” John breathed in relief. He sat down in his clear circle on the floor. “It’s been dead all morning.”

“You are not accustomed to long silences?” she said, shaking out what appeared to be a snowflake-design jumper.

“While living with Sherlock? God, no. He’s only ever silent when he’s thinking, and even then he’s usually muttering something every now and then.” John grinned, thinking of that one time he’d walked in to find Sherlock gazing into nothing and muttering something about trained cormorants and lighthouses.

Mummy Holmes nodded knowingly. “That is one thing I do miss often,” she said.

John smiled softly at her. “Good having him around for a bit, then?”

“Of course.” She paused her knitting to send John a nearly sunny smile. “Though it is even better that he brought such a charming friend. They never brought over any friends, my pair of sons. I shall have to search for the Polaroids their father insisted upon to show you. I have heard it is traditional to do so.”

John’s smile stretched wide. “Mm, yes, we can’t go against tradition, can we, Mrs. Holmes?”

Suddenly, there was a loud, booming “ **NO** ” echoing down the hallway, followed by the slam of a door.

They both paused and looked to the room’s entrance to see if Sherlock would appear, and when he did not, they turned back to each other.

“Guess he heard us,” John said, chuckling.

“No son of mine can intimidate me,” Mrs. Holmes stated, returning to her knitting. “I shall show you them, John Watson, this I swear.”

The distant door opened and slammed again.

Her lips curved upward. “It is just like old times,” she said fondly.

***

It was about an hour or two into his continued sorting that John started to notice something odd. For one, the Middle- and Lower-Yes piles were starting to stack up quite a lot. For another…

“Is something the matter?” Mrs. Holmes asked at the sound of his perplexed hum.

“Um, nothing really,” John replied, picking up his next sheet. His eyebrows narrowed, and he huffed and put it in the discard pile. “It’s just I’ve been getting a bunch of love miracles for a while.”

“How intriguing,” Mummy stated, not looking up from her needles.

“It’s a bit odd, isn’t it?” John said, eyeing her carefully. That nagging ‘something’s fishy about this’ instinct he’d honed in Afghanistan was lighting up.

She sighed. “I would not know, John. I never bothered to read the ones from which I picked. Are there lots of people wishing for love?”

“It would seem so,” John said, sending her another guarded look before looking at his sorted piles again.

This was almost certainly Sherlock’s interference. He couldn’t prove it, but it seemed like the sort of thing Sherlock would do to try to encourage John to follow his lead—nudging things behind the scenes to create the semblance of a pattern, waiting to see when he’d connect the jigsaw pieces laid out for him. Well…actually, it seemed more like a Mycroft thing to do. Except Mycroft wasn’t here, so maybe it was really a Mrs. Holmes thing to do. Maybe it was a collaborative effort between the two of them. He sent Mummy Holmes another cautious look, then decided not to worry over it too much. If the Holmeses were trying to help him somehow—though God knows _why_ or how they thought they were being helpful, since neither of them had sorting strategies he subscribed to—then he couldn’t complain too much.

Or maybe, just possibly, it was a coincidence. He picked up his next application to find something about a Diana and a Trisha and a wedding, then snorted and completely dismissed that possibility. So the Holmeses were trying to either show or tell him something from this, then.

John rifled through the different piles he’d made so far. Feeling somewhat disappointed, he still found the ‘Extreme Yes’ pile had mostly medical emergencies in it. However, he was a bit proud of himself for finding a couple of other applications he could reject outright—they were ones he’d decided just needed courage, determination, and patience rather than mystic intervention. Tim the Plumber had since been joined by a couple others that he couldn’t quite put a finger on why he couldn’t reject them, since the applicants’ lives were for the most part all right. The ‘Lower Yes’ range tended to have a lot of animals in them—not that John thought they weren’t important to the people who loved them, but he supposed that as a doctor he was more inclined to focusing on people. And the ‘Middle Yes’ range tended to have a hodgepodge of love-related ones, family-related ones, money-related ones, and some minor medical ones.

Yet somehow, none of these applicants had stuck out to him as being…the _right_ ones. Even with the system he’d been working with, the ‘urgent priority’ sorting, he’d never be able to figure out how to narrow down ten thousand some-odd to _twelve_. The familiar sense of despair started flooding in. He could literally sort _every single one_ of these applications, read them word for word, and he’d never just… _happen_ on the right ones. He could never ‘just know’ the right ones. He was beginning to think he’d somehow tricked himself into thinking that he could, that he _would_ ‘just know it when he saw it.’

So, what then? Should he just pick the ones he liked the most? It’d be a personal, sincere, _conscious_ gift if he did, which John rather liked the thought of—it’d have the true spirit of giving in it, which was rather the point of the whole season. But then he thought of Sherlock—Sherlock rightly pointing out the downfalls of favouritism and bias, the unfairness in choosing to ameliorate one person’s struggles over another’s, the visible strain it had put on Sherlock to think of being _personally_ responsible not just for twelve people’s happiness but for the disappointment and sorrow of ten thousand others.

So then, should he pick Mrs. Holmes’s method—picking them at random? It’d be cold, careless, and even a little cruel, with an empty, half-hearted sort of whim that mostly just signified the effort of going through the motions, which John for the heart of him just couldn’t fathom doing. But at the same time, even such a clinical method held some spirit in it—the generosity of giving something to another person regardless of who they were, what their situation was, or how you felt about them. It was a way of saying ‘you are equal to everyone in my eyes, and I favour you because I favour everyone.’ In a strange way, it was the most selfless form of giving of all, even if it was the most distant.

With a frustrated sigh, he picked up another application, eyes widening as he read it. It was a type he hadn’t seen before—an upcoming natural disaster, one that could affect _hundreds_ of lives, rather than just one or two; the miracle, if granted, could save most or all of them. His breath hitched and he immediately set it to a newly formed ‘Even More Extreme Yes’ pile. If there was at least one of those in the mound, then there was bound to be at least a handful more, ones that offered the chance to save hundreds of people at one time.

John was starting to feel his head swim. Should that be how he decided? By _how many_ lives he could change—how many he could _save_? Should he try to save as many as possible? Would that be fair? Would it be fair to favour one type of miracle over another? Wouldn’t it be better overall to try to do the most good, to weigh the needs of the many over the needs of the few?

But then there were people like Tim. Tim, who damn well deserved _something_ in his life, just one single thing, because _everyone_ deserved at least one solid incredible thing in their lives. Tim who wasn’t important in the grand scheme of things, Tim whom he’d reject in order to save entire cities from fire, nuclear meltdowns, flooding, tornados, hurricanes…because that’s what most people would do, isn’t it?

He was reminded of an old ethics question a professor of his in med school had liked to pose to everyone on the first day of classes—if you could save ten people by killing one man and harvesting his organs, would you do it? John had always answered No, back then. Would you do it if the man only had a year left to live? No. If he only had a day? No. If he only had an hour? No. If he was an evil man? No.

John had gone to war and still answered No.

John had come back to London and killed a man for Sherlock.

His answer now wasn’t Yes. His answer now was If I’m Still A Doctor, No.

He didn’t know what his answer would be if he ever stopped being a doctor.

He felt as though he were sinking underwater, the lives entrusted to him weighing heavy above him and diffusing the sunlight. Because it was never the weight of an anchor or the cement shoes that drowned a man, it was the water, the repercussions of taking too much in his hands. John Watson looked across the piles he’d read and the ocean he’d had yet to finish crossing and simply thought, _There’s too many_. Too many people, too many factors, too many different situations, too many types…

…Wait. …Types. _Types!_ He gasped, feeling his head breach the surface. “ _Types_!” he breathed, bursting into an enormous grin.

“John!” said Mrs. Holmes, who was kneeling beside him with a hand on his shoulder for who knows how long, looking deeply concerned. “John, are you all right?”

John lunged toward his sorted piles and frantically started rifling through them. He’d started a Natural Disasters pile. He already had a Medical Emergency Pile. He had a Pets pile. He could sift out a Love pile and a Money pile from the mess that was there. And a Family pile, and a Miscellaneous pile for people like Tim, and…he could make twelve piles, or eight piles, it didn’t matter, and randomly pick one or two from each, and…it was a _balance_ , the compromise he’d been looking for, and it wasn’t perfect, nothing like perfect, but it would _work_.

He stumbled to his feet, instantly realising that his foot had fallen asleep, and let Mrs. Holmes steady him as he hissed through the pins and needles.

“John, what’s wrong?” she asked him again.

He shook his head and started giggling, face fixed in a grin. “Nothing, nothing,” he said between giggling fits, and, after recovering the use of his foot, looked at her and beamed. “I need to…I need to get Sherlock!”

He took off at a run before she could reply, breathlessly laughing to himself. “Sherlock!” he called, skidding to a halt in front of the shut bedroom door. “Sherlock!”

Sherlock had just barely opened the door and started to say, “Yes, John, I can h—” when John launched himself at the detective-cum-Father-Christmas and kissed him soundly.

Sherlock managed a surprised “Mrph?!” and instinctively folded an arm around John’s back to stop them both from falling over, but then John broke the kiss with a loud _smack_ and pulled away, tugging on Sherlock’s elbow.

“C’mon, c’mon, I’ve figured it out!” John urged, grinning.

Sherlock blinked dazedly at him and failed to move at all for at least ten seconds.

“C’mon, I need you to help with the magic bit, I’ve figured it out!” John said again, starting to walk down the hallway. He looked back when he realised that Sherlock had not moved from the doorway, his neck still bent over awkwardly from when they’d kissed. “Sherlock?”

Sherlock seemed to finally come out of his momentary catatonia and looked at John, eyebrows furrowed. “Why did you kiss me?” he asked.

“Because of the—” John started, then realised. He turned bright pink. “Oh. Oh, the door. We didn’t need to…oh god, sorry. Sorry, I was a bit worked up, and, uh, it’s sort of become habit by now, I didn’t even think about…sorry.”

Sherlock straightened up and said, eloquently, “Ah,” while smoothing out the creases in his coat. John suddenly couldn’t bear to look at him and turned his face to the side, scratching the back of his neck with one hand, face hot with embarrassment.

John cleared his throat and muttered, “I’ve figured out what to do with the miracles.”

“Have you?” Sherlock returned crisply, slowly striding up next to John.

John nodded and started walking, not even daring to risk a side-glance.

When they stepped into the living room, Mummy Holmes glided towards them, saying, “John, are you well? You were quite agitated. Your face is red.”

John waved off her concern and cleared his throat again. “I’m fine.” He fell into parade rest, feeling slightly more secure just by doing so, and forced himself to look at Sherlock. “Anyway, this is where you come in, Sherlock.”

Sherlock silently folded his arms and tilted his head slightly.

“Am I right in thinking you can automatically filter these applications? I mean, they all came from your mind, so I’m assuming,” John said.

Sherlock nodded.

“Right, good,” John said, offering a thin smile. “So, my plan is we sort all the miracles into different types, then I’ll pick one or two from each category randomly. It eliminates most of the bias, and it makes for a more even spread across different situations. What do you think?”

Sherlock shared a brief glance with his mother, and they both smiled a little. “I believe it is a reasonable solution,” Sherlock said.

“Great, so…I guess we’ll get started then,” John replied. “The first category—can you sort out all the ones that involve a grand-scale disaster of some kind—I guess they can be natural or manmade—but the miracles that will affect say…more than ten people?”

Sherlock unfolded his arms and held them out in front of him, as though he’d been set before a piano. His eyes turned a bright, glowing gold, and he rapidly began tapping his fingers and moving them from side to side. John watched with no small sense of wonder as a handful of sheets in the pile turned gold and suddenly flew across the room to land at Sherlock’s feet, forming a neat, even stack. Sherlock lowered his arms and looked unblinkingly at John, eyes still aglow.

John thought for a moment. He pointed at the pile at Sherlock’s feet. “Actually, could you pick out the one that lists the most lives that will be affected in there and put it on top?”

Sherlock offhandedly twirled a hand in the air, and the pile made a shuffling noise as the papers rearranged themselves to let one near the bottom fly to the top.

John nodded and stooped to pick up the pile, putting it off to one side. “Thank you,” he said.

Sherlock simply raised his hands into the air again, poised to play through a mute sonata that likely only he could hear.

Through the course of sorting, they only hit a slight snag when Sherlock asked what he should do with ones that could go into more than one category, which John instructed him to put in a separate pile that they would manually categorise after the initial sorting. After this had been accomplished, the three of them wordlessly picked apart the ‘Could Be More Than One’ pile, and then they were left with seven piles. John regarded the small towers: Grand-scale Disasters, Medical Emergencies (which included up to nine people per miracle file), Financial Difficulties, Love Obstacles, Lost Pets, Family Problems, and, for lack of a better term, the ‘Otherwise All Right’ pile.

Unsurprisingly, Medical Emergencies and Financial Difficulties tended to take up the bulk of the pile, and John briefly pondered if he should pick a few more from those two than the others. He frowned. Seven piles for twelve miracles. It’d be easier if there’d only been six piles. He sighed.

“Having doubts?” Sherlock asked.

“No, just problems with maths,” he replied.

“The quotient is one point seven-one-four-two-eight-five, all decimal digits repeating,” said Mrs. Holmes. “However, the obvious solution is to pick two each from five piles, and one each from a sixth and seventh pile.”

John turned to her with raised eyebrows.

“I enjoy mathematics,” she stated with a small shrug. “Though I much prefer fractal geometry over mere arithmetic.”

“Mother, you are showing off,” Sherlock grumbled.

“You inherited it from somewhere, my son.”

John smiled and turned back to the piles. “Well, we can’t grant point-seven-something of a miracle, so it’s going to be the other one.” He pointed to the Medical Emergencies pile. “Sherlock, can you take out the one that’s closest to expiring from that pile?”

Sherlock twirled an arm, and a gold-glowing sheet shuffled its way out from the middle of the tower and flew to the top. John picked it up and skimmed it briefly—a mother in Nigeria currently giving birth to triplets, but the birth wasn’t going well; the miracle was set to expire in nine minutes. He gave the sheet to Sherlock and picked up the first one off the Grand-scale Disaster pile, which was a massive nuclear meltdown threatening 500+ people a week from now, and also gave that to Sherlock.

“Neither of these are ‘random,’ John,” Sherlock said.

“Yeah, I know,” John said, looking at the other piles. “The doctor in me couldn’t resist. But the second ones from those piles will be.” He had a little less than nine minutes to figure out the rest of them, but that shouldn’t be difficult—he decided that Lost Pets and the ‘Otherwise All Right’ folks were the piles that were going to get the one-offs.

He picked out a middle one each from Grand-scale Disasters and Medical Emergencies, handing them over to Sherlock without looking at them, shuffling over to Financial Difficulties and pulling out one near the top and another near the bottom. Love Obstacles had one from the upper-middle and, with some help from Sherlock to make sure the pile didn’t topple, the second-to-last from the bottom. Family Problems was the lower-middle and second-from-the-top. Lost Pets was about the size of a phonebook, which John could feasibly pick up and randomly flip through; he closed his eyes, started the flipping, counted to five, and stuck his finger on a page. He peeked at the application and smiled, glad to see that Shadow would be coming home after all.

Then the last pile. John just smiled and said, “Get Tim’s,” because by this point, he’d thought about this unknown man long enough that he couldn’t just let him go now.

Sherlock held the twelve applications in his hand and looked carefully at John. “You’re sure?” he said.

John sighed, glanced at the paper towers next to him, then back at the pile in Sherlock’s hands. “I know it isn’t perfect,” John said. “But yeah, I’m sure.”

Sherlock offered him a smile, which John couldn’t help returning, then transferred the papers to one hand. “Watch this,” he rumbled, smirking.

John felt Mummy Holmes step next to him and place a hand on his arm. “Try not to move,” she advised.

Sherlock stretched out his arm and held unnaturally still, gold illuminating from his eyes and brightening to the intensity of lighthouse torches. John felt an impossible wind blowing at his back, and he looked over his shoulder and saw the rejected applications starting to fly off, swirling around the room. He looked back to Sherlock, and the wind suddenly picked up, blowing apart the towers behind him entirely, catching the papers in a vortex that charged around the room, faster and faster, until the walls disappeared in a blur of white. Sherlock’s hair and coat were fluttering wildly, but even still, the papers in his hand were at rest.

Sherlock inhaled, and with a voice that could resonate across all the Earth’s mountains and oceans, he declared, “ _The Will be done_.”

The papers in his hand became engulfed in a sudden, blue-white blaze, which danced and stretched in his palm until, inexplicably, twelve white doves erupted from the middle of the flame and soared up and through the ceiling. John gaped, then realised that the sound of blowing paper around him had become the sound of thousands of _wings_ , and he looked to his sides to see that the papers left behind had transformed into a whirlwind of geese, swans, canaries, turtle-doves, hens, partridges, songbirds, ducks, plovers, starlings, goldspinks, a parrot, and a peacock, all flapping and flying in an aviary of chaos.[11]

In one mighty _woosh_ , the birds ascended into the ceiling, and John, Sherlock, and Mrs. Holmes were left in an empty, quiet room.

Sherlock lowered his arm and sighed. “That’s certainly a load off my mind.”

John took a moment to catch his breath. “‘The Will be done’?” he asked.

Sherlock shrugged. “That’s just what you’re supposed to say.”

“Did it work?”

“I don’t know.”

John paused, furrowing his brow. “What do you mean you don’t know? You’re omniscient.”

“Limited omniscient,” Sherlock corrected. “And that knowledge is closed to me now.” He sighed again contentedly, closing his eyes and tilting his face upwards. “Much quieter now that I only have to endure the idlings of the present day.”

John tried to process what that meant and started to feel hopeful. “Does that mean you can’t hear my thoughts anymore?”

“Oh no,” said Sherlock, dashing his hopes completely. “I’m a Gift-Giver, John, we always know what people want. But now I’m no longer burdened by the future or the pressure of changing it.” He turned an unexpectedly sunny smile on John, and John felt something inside him go soft, like warm caramel.

“Sherlock, your manners,” Mummy Holmes said, flicking her eyes toward John.

Sherlock huffed and rolled his eyes. “Yes, thank you for your assistance, John.”

John shrugged. Then he raised his eyebrows. “I wasn’t doing it alone.”

“Obviously,” Sherlock snorted.

“Congratulations to you both,” said Mummy, looking between them with the hint of a smile. “We can reward ourselves with dinner, perhaps?” she added, gesturing toward the hallway.

“Sounds lovely,” John replied, feeling his appetite swoop down on him as the full realisation that the job was done came to him.

He and Sherlock followed her out into the hallway, and as they walked, John snuck a glance at Sherlock and said, “Though I’m not sure what you meant by the stunt you pulled earlier.”

“Hmm?” Sherlock hummed in reply, not bothering to look over.

“By making me read nothing but love miracles over and over. Not sure how you thought that was going to help.”

He was eyeing Sherlock carefully, and when Sherlock failed to look his way as he replied, “I don’t know what you mean, John,” John knew he had him.

“I’m not stupid, you know,” John said, a touch teasingly. “I can tell when you’re interfering, though I don’t think your strategy did what you were expecting it to do. Seriously, why all the love gush? Were you hoping it’d desensitize me or something so I could be more objective?”

Sherlock sighed and rolled his eyes. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about, John,” he grumbled, starting to pout.

John smiled at Sherlock’s pointed lack of eye contact and annoyed aura. “If you’d thought of a different way to solve the miracle issue, you could’ve just told me, rather than trying to make me guess it. Now you have to wait another year before you get the chance to use your own strategy.”

As they walked by the tree, Sherlock reached out a finger and brushed the solitary bee ornament in passing, making it wobble and glint in the candlelight. “Your solution was perfectly acceptable, John. And I have no intention of returning next year to test imaginary strategies you believe I have.”

John chuckled. “I’m just saying, if you’d wanted to offer any help, you could’ve done it openly. No need to be all sneaky about it.”

Sherlock slowly looked over and gave him a thin, restrained smile. “John, I had every faith you would find the right answer on your own,” he said, sincerely, quietly, right before they entered the rush and sound of the dining hall, agleam with silver and rich with the smell of popped champagne.

* * *

 

[11] The list of various birds are all birds which have, at one point or another, been in a version of the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” You can thank the nineteenth century Scots for the parrot. You can thank some random dude named William Bell Scott for the peacock. Other fun fact: nobody’s _quite_ sure what a “calling bird” or “colly bird” is supposed to be, but they guess it’s either a songbird or a black bird—I went with songbirds for this one.


	11. St. Lucia's Day

John was certain they were going to kill each other soon.

It’d only taken one responsibility-free day for John to realise that the threat of boredom was very, very real here—not just for Sherlock (with the North Pole’s Internet-less, murder-less surroundings), but for John as well. Now that he’d finished with his duties as Sherlock’s Miracle Chooser, he had nothing to do. He couldn’t help with Sherlock’s List-checking, and the elves had insisted that they didn’t need his help—each time he’d offered (nearly begged) for a job to do, they’d sweetly let him do something small like curling ribbons and then five minutes later insist that he should take a break and eat more shortbread. He was _itching_ for something to do.

Which is how, three days after that, John found himself wearing a frankly ridiculous outfit and holding a large basket of saffron buns with Mrs. Holmes, waiting for the Resident Git to show up in the gift-sorting room. Because ridiculous outfit or not, at least he had _something_ to do, and it’d get him out of the North Pole for a couple of hours.

John clenched and unclenched his right hand, pursing his lips, and watched the entrance for the familiar shadow of Sherlock Holmes to appear. He checked his watch, not that it would be helpful, since they would be visiting a different time zone soon. 

“Where is he?” he muttered, mostly to himself.

Mrs. Holmes laid a hand on his arm. “He will come, John.”

John silently disagreed. He licked his lips, winced at the sore spot on his bottom lip, and stared down the hallway.

If John had become a bit moody over the past few days, it was nothing compared to the holy terror that Sherlock had become.

It had begun like most of Sherlock’s black moods usually did—sniping at everything and everyone, sighing and bemoaning his boredom, fidgeting, stomping in and out of rooms. John had done his best to police Sherlock’s rudeness when necessary (i.e., when he sniped at the elves, because Mrs. Holmes could apparently shut down any rudeness directed at her with merely a cold stare) and subsequently put up with the rest with as much patience as he could muster, because he knew at that point that nagging Sherlock would only make it worse. So John allowed himself to be distracted from ancient _Audubon_ magazines that he’d found in a fit of bored desperation whenever Sherlock demanded that he fetch tea, biscuits, bouncy balls, or on one occasion “a violin, any violin, steal one from the gift stock if you have to, John” (as it turned out, John didn’t have to steal one, since the elves were happy enough to make a new one from scratch). Then he had to put up with Sherlock forgetting to let him back into the room after retrieving said items for minutes at a time, leaving John looking like a right idiot standing in front of a wide-open door and calling for Sherlock to come out of his Mind Palace or glowy-eyed magical trance state or whatever sulk he was in to let him in. Then he usually had to put up with Sherlock neglecting to consume the edibles, bouncing the bouncy balls _ad nauseum_ until Sherlock decided it was time for them to die by fire, and finally, after John had made the mistake of actually retrieving a violin, the sound of Sherlock recreating the murder of many cats. 

After that, the sulking escalated in the usual Sherlock fashion, which generally involved dead silence followed by damaging nearby inanimate objects for no apparent reason (as John had predicted, he found himself walking into the living room on Day 2 of his Task-Free Existence to discover Sherlock setting fire to the snooker table, at which point John suggested they go reindeer racing for a while). John had done his best to keep Sherlock-related arson and destruction at a minimum, but there was only so much he could contain when deep down he rather looked forward to battling whatever creative fire Sherlock had managed to set ( _how_ Sherlock had set fire to the kitchen sink, he was still puzzling over). The silence, however, put John on edge, and though he knew it was largely a waste of time, his repeated failures to engage Sherlock in conversation still made him thoroughly irritated with the man.

Then yesterday had happened. For John, yesterday had begun with him waking to the ever-so-charming dead-eyed stare of Sherlock Holmes as he loomed over John’s bed.

***

“What the hell are you doing?” John groaned at him, uncharmed.

Sherlock just stared at him for six seconds, then said, “I’m thinking about how I would kill you.”

“If you could think about it on the other side of the room, I’d be grateful,” John wearily replied.

Sherlock obliged, then picked up the violin and started playing the death theme from _Psycho_. John threw a pillow at him.

Sherlock paused, turned his head over his shoulder with an inscrutable stare, and remarked, “Your marksmanship is getting rusty, John.” Then he resumed playing, louder and shriller.

John started counting to three, but the screeching imitation of nails on chalkboard made him lose count at “two,” and he stormed out of their room in his sleep clothes, determined to get his morning tea and not bring any to Sherlock and then avoid him the rest of the day.

He realised his planning error when he walked into the breakfast room barefoot, unshaven, and hair still sleep-mussed to the sound of Mrs. Holmes’s muted chuckle. His embarrassment was immediate.

She stopped her airy chuckle and got up to get him a cup of tea, handing it to him as he made his way to the table and slumped in his seat. “He was just as unbearable when he was teething,” she said kindly.

John took the cup and sighed. “Except teething ends, eventually. When Sherlock’s bored, it doesn’t _end_. Not until there’s a corpse to investigate.”

She looked thoughtful, gazing at a point over John’s shoulder, then remarked, “Who’s to say he isn’t teething?”

John sent her a puzzled look. She redirected her gaze to the kitchen window, where the Northern Lights were putting on a show. After another minute of silence, John decided to let it go and sipped at his tea—he’d long since learnt that it was impossible to decryptify a Holmes when they were being enigmatic.

Some minutes later, she declared, with no lead-in whatsoever, “St. Lucia’s Day is tomorrow. Would you like to assist me?”

His ears pricked. It’d been _days_ since he’d had something to do. “What’s that?”

“A minor holiday celebrated primarily in Scandinavia and some parts of Italy.[12] One of the few holidays that I, as a woman, can herald in during the winter season. It is not as extensive as the holidays Sherlock is required to preside over—mostly, I deliver small sweets to children and the elderly. You can be my Star Boy, if you are so inclined.”

Being a Star Boy apparently involved dressing in white and helping her deliver the sweets. John had almost immediately said yes.

“In that case, it is fortunate that you are not dressed,” she said. “We can get to work adjusting the outfit to your measurements.” Then she’d promptly stolen him before he could let that fact sink in or even properly finish his breakfast, and he found himself in Sherlock’s old room with Mrs. Holmes rummaging through a closet. He looked around the room with interest, noting that although Mummy Holmes appeared to have made it over into neutral cream-coloured femininity, there were still a few notches of Sherlock etched into the woodwork—a Jolly Roger carved into the wall above the bed, for one, as well as a parrot skeleton encased in glass on top of a wardrobe.

“You have two options,” Mummy Holmes was saying, tossing various shirts and trousers aside. “Traditional, or slightly wrong holiday.”

John watched the clothing fly. “Um, I guess traditional would be bett—oh god no,” he said, on seeing her hold up a long white robe and what looked like a dunce hat with stars all over it.[13] “Sorry,” he added, on seeing her raise an eyebrow. “I don’t think I’m much suited to looking like a choir boy.”

“As I thought,” she said, tossing the outfit aside. “Patrick did not care much for it either, when he was assisting—before I had my sons to help, that is.” She smiled. “They made endearing Star Boys when they were young. I also made them wear the hats.”

John grinned. “ _That_ would be a sight to see.”

Her smile widened into a pink-cheeked grin. “Fortunately for you, John, I have been looking through Patrick’s assortment of things, and I’ve managed to find some of his photograph albums. You may look at them while we get you fitted—but be careful not to think of it, or we’ll have Sherlock attempting to break down the door.”

John had no particular desire to put up with Sherlock that day, so he immediately started thinking of sugar plums and kept the thought on a background loop.

Mrs. Holmes turned and held up an incredibly ornate and vaguely Persian sort of outfit, which was white and blue and detailed in gold thread. “Here we are,” she stated. “Our alternative. Technically speaking, it is meant to portray one of the Magi—Caspar, to be precise.[14] However, if we add enough star details to it, it will suffice; the important thing is for people to recognise what you are meant to be, not to be exact.”

“Well,” John said, trying to take in the glittery richness of the fabrics she was holding up. “At least it comes with trousers.”

“Indeed. And we shall start with them,” she said, tossing the baggy trousers at him. “Please do put them on.”

John gave the _shalwar_ -esque blue fabric a bit of a sceptical look, then retired into the adjoining bathroom to attempt to put them on. When he came back out, Mummy Holmes was armed with a sewing kit and safety pins, and John was desperately holding up the billowy trousers with both hands.

“Are they supposed to be this…loose?” he asked.

“They are meant to be rather loose, yes, but we shall tighten them a bit to fit you,” she replied, waving him over to a vanity table, where a photo album was resting open on the surface. “You may stand over there and peruse the photos, though keep in mind not to think about them.”

John breathed a sigh of relief and shuffled over to the vanity. “Well, that’s good. Otherwise they’d be falling down all the time.”

Mrs. Holmes pulled up a chair to sit next to him and immediately began folding in the excess fabric from the inside at his waist, pinning it in place. “If we were to be historically accurate to the king Caspar is supposedly based off of, your trousers would only reach your mid-thighs and be gartered to the end of your tunic.”[15] She smirked. “However, I think you would not appreciate the refreshing Scandinavian breezes if that were the case.”

John chuckled. “Thank Christ we’re not doing that.” As Mummy Holmes continued pinning the trousers into a loose yet secure position, John looked at the pictures and had to bite back a sharp laugh, immediately reminding himself to put ‘sugar plums’ on a mental loop. The photo had the faintly yellowing quality of pictures from the 70s and early 80s, and it featured a grinning Mummy Holmes in a Lucia robe and candle-crown with a five-year-old Sherlock and a sullen twelve-year-old Mycroft on either side of her, wearing white robes of their own with the pointy star hats. Sherlock looked torn between imitating the sourpuss attitude of his brother and the delight of his mother—his arms were crossed across his chest like Mycroft’s, but he had a pleased little smile quirking his lips as he looked at the camera.

Mummy Holmes moved the chair to John’s other side, working on pinning the fabric there. John turned the page in the album and was treated to the sight of young Sherlock stuffing his face with saffron buns.[16] “This has made my entire year,” John commented, grinning as he turned another page to see a slightly older Sherlock—maybe around nine or ten years of age—now scowling openly at the camera with his brother, both of them doomed to be immortalised in the pointy star hats.

She moved to kneel beside John, folding up the bottom of the fabric a little and pinning it for hemming later. “How does it fit, John?” she asked.

John pulled himself away from a picture of a teenage Sherlock smiling and standing next to his beaming father—a kind-faced man with bright eyes and white curls, dressed in the red furs of Father Christmas—and regarded the trousers, experimentally shifting from side to side. The fabric still hung loose in folds around his legs, but it was tight enough around his waist that John felt confident they wouldn’t fall down.

“Seems all right to me,” he answered.

“Excellent. Keep thinking of sugar plums,” she reminded him, then carried over the white-and-gold open jacket. John put it on, looking curiously at the star pattern threaded through the fabric. He paused to sniff at one of the sleeves. “Frankincense,” she told him, before he had a chance to ask.

The sleeves hung a bit long on him, reaching to the first knuckle of his thumb, and the shoulders had a bit of excess room in them too, even after John attempted to fold the jacket closed. Strangely, despite the excess fabric, the jacket still left a gaping V down his chest.

“Is it supposed to do that?” John asked, pointing at the open V.

“Yes,” Mummy replied, through a mouthful of safety pins. “You are quite a bit smaller than my husband was,” she remarked, to which John could only sigh and nod. She folded up the sleeves, pinned them in place, then brought over a golden belt with a star buckle. She manually folded over the bottom ends of the jacket in what John guessed was supposed to be the correct way, then wrapped the belt around his stomach. “Suck it in,” she commanded, and John, after a brief embarrassed laugh, did so. She struggled for a minute or two to loosen the buckle’s star cover and the prong, then notched the belt snugly. “The belt is a bit rusty; it has been in the family for a long time,” she told him, then added, seemingly to herself, “The shoulders will be tricky.”

John was busy looking critically at himself in the vanity mirror. He was still wearing a shirt under the jacket, but even so… “Will I be wearing something under this jacket?” he asked, while Mrs. Holmes was carefully pulling out the shoulder seams and tucking in the excess fabric, pinning it in place.

“Not traditional.”

“Won’t it be cold?”

“I shall lend you one of my father’s overcoats. He was about your size, and it is quite warm. It also matches your colour scheme.”

John raised an eyebrow. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to make sure I showed some skin, Mum.”

“You could have chosen the robe, John,” she retorted.

By which point John realised it was futile to protest. His choices were either looking like an overgrown choir boy in a stupid hat or a flamboyant Persian prince. There really was no good option. So he just sighed and let her work, idly keeping ‘sugar plums’ on a mental loop, and reminded himself that doing something in a silly outfit was better than doing nothing at all.

Once she’d finished pinning everything in place, ready to be sewed together, she made him turn in a slow circle as she scrutinised the fit.

“Just a few accessories missing,” she commented to herself. “Which I shall ask the _domovyye_ to prepare. One moment more, John,” she instructed as she pulled out a measuring tape from her sewing kit, which she wrapped around his head and then his middle, nodding to herself. Then she smiled. “You do look quite dignified.”

John sent himself another sceptical look in the mirror, baggy pants and glittery open jacket and all. “No offense, Mum, but I’m pretty sure I look ridiculous.”

“You will feel better when I add the sword,” she reassured him. “Just hold yourself with the dignity of Gondophares I, first king of the Indo-Parthian Kingdom, who in legend chased a star across the Syrian Desert, and it will fit.”

“I don’t think I’d be a good king, Mum,” John protested, smiling.

“You’re a veteran of Kandahar,” she stated, and John involuntarily straightened his posture. “There—look, it does suit,” she said, pointing.

John looked back into the mirror and briefly saw an ancient conqueror and wise man, and in the next second, he saw a bemused middle-aged doctor wearing too many glittery things.

“You will feel better with the sword,” Mummy repeated with a small smile. “Thank you for your patience—you may change, though be mindful of the pins.”

After he’d changed, they stepped back out into the hallway only to feel a palpable change in the air—a hushed, suffocating silence, so deadly still that even the smallest movement felt like a disturbance against nature. They looked at each other. John glanced to the end of the corridor, where the door remained open, but nothing stirred from within. Mummy put a hand on his arm and slowly shook her head, nodding in the direction of the atrium, and John hesitantly followed her lead. They went in for an early supper to an eerily quiet dining hall—which was occupied, but no one seemed to be willing to talk above the level of a timid whisper. The heavy atmosphere even seemed to have an effect on Mrs. Holmes, whom John could’ve sworn had started to grow ice crystals in her hair. On finishing their silent supper, she leant towards him and whispered, “Come see me tomorrow afternoon for the final fitting. We’ll begin delivering shortly thereafter. But John…I wanted to make sure you’d eaten properly, but I think you’d better see him now. There is an ill feeling in this air—this isn’t ordinary, not even for Sherlock. It worries me.”

John swallowed, then nodded. He slid out of his dining chair and slinked down the corridors, unable to predict what he’d find at the other end, feeling like he was on a long walk to the chopping block.

As he approached the open bedroom door, he noted it was pitch black inside—Sherlock had let the fire go out. John felt the hairs on his neck stand on end, and he cautiously knocked on the doorframe. He cleared his throat and called Sherlock’s name. Receiving no response for at least fifteen seconds, he knocked again.

“Are you in there?” he called.

John fidgeted and attempted to look through the door at different angles, weaving his head from side to side. He sighed and looked down. When he looked back up, Sherlock had slithered out of the darkness directly in front of John and was staring down at him with cold, hard eyes. John’s skin broke out in gooseflesh.

He didn’t dare back down.

“There you are,” John said evenly. “Could you let me in?”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment he said nothing. Then, lowly, “Why?”

John briefly shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Because we share this room and I’d like to come in.”

Sherlock’s jaw clenched. “Is that so?”

John furrowed his eyebrows. “Yes. We’ve been sharing it for a week now.”

Sherlock just stared at him.

John hadn’t the slightest idea what to make of this reaction. “Any time now,” he prompted, after a few more seconds of silence.

“Perhaps it would be more efficient if we did not share,” Sherlock snapped, which only made John more confused.

“I…don’t see how. Neither of us would have a place to—”

“I could take back my old room,” Sherlock interrupted. “It’d certainly make things _cosier_ , wouldn’t it?” he added with a sneer.

John’s confusion was propelled to astronomical levels. “Ah—no, not really. Sherlock, what are you going on about?”

“ _Why did you shut me out?_ ” Sherlock snarled, suddenly looming far too close into John’s personal space.

John took a step back. “Shut _you_ out? What the hell are you—?”

“ _Sugar. Plums_ ,” Sherlock growled. “Both you and my mother, John, you were keeping me out for over an hour. _Why?_ ”

John blinked at him. “Because we didn’t want you barging in and—”

“Oh, of course, silly me,” Sherlock sneered. “Does this mean I should start calling you ‘ _Dad_ ’ now?”

John’s jaw dropped when the realisation struck. “You’re _kidding_ ,” he said, horrified and enormously insulted. “Sherlock, have you lost your goddamn _mind_?”

Sherlock slammed a fist into the doorframe and caged John in with his other hand, glaring down at him, eyes swirling in Technicolor. “ _Do not. Treat me. Like an **idiot** , John_,” he said, through clenched teeth. Then, in a rush, “You think I haven’t _noticed_? I notice _every damn thing_ , John, you think I haven’t noticed your little _touches_ , you think I haven’t noticed that she’s happier when you’re around, that I haven’t noticed she smiles more since she’s met you than she has since my father died, that you’re going out of your way to compliment her, that you’re drawn to her because she has all of _my_ better qualities, that you’ve _both_ been playing me for an _idiot?_ ”

John promptly pushed him off and shouted, “You _have_ lost your goddamn mind, Sherlock, if you’d think I could possibly do that! She’s your _mum_ , for Christ’s sakes! What kind of— _Jesus_ —what kind of man do you think I am, that I’d do that—and your _mother_ , you _idiot_ , how could you even think that of her? How _dare_ you think that either of us would betray you like that?”

Sherlock just stood there, chest heaving, then turned his head to the side and muttered, “I see facts for what they are, John, and the _fact_ is that you’d rather spend your time with her.” He turned a fierce, hurt look back on John and snapped, “If that is the case of things, then why should I interfere?”

Then it clicked, with perfect clarity, in John’s head. “You’re jealous,” John said, amazed. “You complete utter _idiot_ , you’re _jealous_.”

Which was apparently the wrong thing to say, because Sherlock shoved him into the doorframe and crushed his mouth against John’s, biting hard on his bottom lip. John instinctively slammed an open palm against the side of Sherlock’s head and punched him somewhere near a kidney, causing Sherlock to break off with a small “oof” and stumble away, clutching at his side. They stood there, panting at each other, and John felt a warm sting on his lower lip—he touched a hand to his mouth, and it came away with a spot of red.

Sherlock’s eyes were still awhirl with colour, eyebrows furrowed, and he suddenly turned his head to the side and wiped at his mouth with one hand. He turned up the collar on his coat and swept past John down the corridor.

“Wait,” John called after him, watching as Sherlock stalked down the hallway. He hesitated, debating the wisdom of going after Sherlock so soon, especially since if he did he wouldn’t be able to get in the room. But he was still in a state of shock and anger and he needed to check that the cut on his lip wasn’t serious, and he could damn well find Sherlock when they weren’t as overly pissed with each other—it’s not like he had anywhere to hide; they were in a closed environment. John went in the room, shutting the door behind him.

He crossed into the bathroom and turned on the light, examining his mouth in the mirror. As far as bites go, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world—the bleeding was nothing worse than what you might find on excessively chapped lips, so it wasn’t as though he’d need sutures. But his lip did look red and swollen, with teeth indentations imprinted around the bite. Carefully, he washed the site of injury with a damp washcloth, taking a moment to absorb what had happened.

Sherlock was jealous. Sherlock was _jealous._ _Sherlock_. Of John and his mum spending time together, under some horribly mistaken belief that they were Involved with each other. Which was a thought so incomprehensible that it just made John angry with him all over again—where on earth would a genius like that even come up with such an idea?

Granted, when he thought about it, what Sherlock had said he’d ‘noticed’ wasn’t entirely wrong—Mummy Holmes _was_ looking a bit more human than when John had first met her, but that was because she was happy to have her son around again and to actually have someone other than elves to talk to, which if the git visited her more often he would’ve _realised_. And yeah, John liked her well enough for the reason Sherlock had said—because she reminded him of Sherlock, but also because she had a no-nonsense commanding sort of air about her that he admired, and because she had no qualms whatsoever about telling him about Sherlock when he was little.

How did the idiot completely _miss_ that? Or at the least, skew that to such absurd proportions?

He attempted to think like Sherlock—which was a laughable feat in of itself most days—to process where John might have made some kind of wrong move that Sherlock would misinterpret. Sherlock had said something about touching…John couldn’t think of anything really amiss there, it was mostly just a few arm and hand touches here and there, nothing that John wouldn’t think of doing with his own mum or grandmother when they were alive. Sherlock had also said something about complimenting…which, yeah, John had done a couple of times, but you’re _supposed_ to compliment your hostess on her hospitality, that was _normal_. Though that probably explained why Sherlock had kept kicking him at the breakfast table those couple of times, the jealous peacock—just because _he_ wasn’t being praised for once didn’t mean...but then, Mrs. Holmes _had_ said that Sherlock had likely misinterpreted praise for preference when he was young, and…Christ, how long had Sherlock been building this up?

But honestly, there was nothing in there so far that…

… _Shit._

 _The eggnog_. He’d been slightly over-friendly when he was drunk on the eggnog. And Sherlock could’ve…yeah, it was feasible he could’ve taken it entirely the wrong way to mean John was _actually_ interested in his mum. Oh god. And today they’d just gone into her room and put the proverbial psychic phone off the hook for an hour. _Christ_.

John tossed the washcloth in the sink and pressed his hands over his eyes, slowly sliding his palms down over his unshaved cheeks. What a _mess_. God, and now he was simultaneously annoyed that Sherlock had so little faith in him (and his own mother!) that he’d jumped to that conclusion _and_ he felt sorry for him. He didn’t know _what_ to feel.

He took another look at himself in the mirror, dabbed a bit of antibacterial ointment on the wound just to be on the safe side, then went out into the bedroom to actually get properly dressed, because if he was going to hunt down Sherlock somewhere in this complex and straighten this out, he should at least be wearing proper trousers for it.

He was halfway through buttoning up his shirt when he heard a knock at the door. His breath hitched. He lunged for the door handle and pulled it open. “Sher—! Oh,” he said, on seeing Mrs. Holmes.

Her eyebrows furrowed on seeing him. “He bit you,” she stated.

He sighed and waved off her concern, finishing up buttoning his shirt. “I’m fine. Sherlock, he—”

“I know,” she said. “Your argument could be heard from the atrium. I will talk to him, John.”

He took a step out the door. “I should—”

She placed a hand on his chest and stopped him from going forward. “No, John, not yet. He is…” Here she bit at her bottom lip, as though searching for the right word, then shook her head. “He needs to trust me first, John,” she said at last. “I am his mother.”

John frowned and sighed, stepping back into the bedroom. “I’m his best friend,” he said, not exactly disagreeing with her, but still protesting all the same.

“I know,” she agreed. “But I feel that if we both try to talk to him at once, he may feel like he’s being besieged. Or he might think we’re trying to corroborate our stories if we talk to him together.” At that, her lips quirked the tiniest fraction. “If we talk to him separately, he might trust our accounts better because he can look for discrepancies between them.”

John crossed his arms and sighed again, nodding. “Yeah, that sounds like him,” he admitted.

She nodded. “I know you are concerned, John, but for the present, just wait. He needs to lick his wounds a bit—there has been much on his mind.”

“When is there not?” John joked weakly.

She gave him a smile that did not reach her eyes. “Indeed,” she said, and turned to leave.

John watched her go for a moment, then closed the door again, turning to fall face-first onto his mattress. He was drained. He’d been putting up with sulking Sherlock for three days, and it had somehow spiralled into _this_ , which, for the record, was probably the most disastrous climax of a Sherlockian Sulk he’d ever had the misfortune to endure.

His injured lip protested being squashed into a pillow, however, so he rolled over and stared at the ceiling. He let the tension of the past three days slowly start to seep out of him, and in a strange way, he began to feel relieved that at least it had reached _some_ sort of conclusion—or so he hoped. If The Great Sulk actually _kept going_ after this, John wasn’t sure what he’d do. They might actually end up killing each other.

He dared himself a smile, feeling the stinging stretch across his battered lip, and imagined that Sherlock would probably think of an exceptionally clever way to kill him if it came down to that, brilliant dickhead that he was. John let his eyes droop closed, and he fell into the easiest sleep he’d had in days.

***

However, when he’d awakened the next morning to discover that Sherlock hadn’t tried to come back to the room, he became worried.

Then, when his brain had caught up to the rest of him, it reminded him of what it’d been quietly trying to process all through the night.

_Sherlock had been jealous._

Which didn’t make sense. Still didn’t make sense, hours later, after unsuccessfully trying to track down the man, because apparently Sherlock _could_ find a place to hide in the North Pole after all. For Sherlock to feel angry and betrayed made sense. Feeling jealous only made sense in the context that Sherlock had possibly felt like he was losing his best friend to someone else.

But Sherlock had _bitten_ him, which…yeah, no, that didn’t make sense. Being punched in the face would have made sense. John could understand punching people in the face. Face-punching was a straightforward form of communication. Biting people on the mouth was not straightforward.

Though Sherlock Holmes in general was never really straightforward—except when he was insulting people’s intelligence or lack thereof, then he was the sharpest, straightest cutting knife in the room. But apart from that, trying to understand how Sherlock’s mind worked was an exercise in going down fast-moving up-escalators—an Escher painting come to life.

He’d gone to Mrs. Holmes that afternoon after combing through what he could of the complex, growing frustrated. Honestly, he just wanted all of this business cleared up, he wanted things back to where they weren’t biting each other for no goddamn reason, and he couldn’t do that if Sherlock had scarpered off somewhere so that John couldn’t even apologise for this mess and fix it.

“I don’t know, John,” she’d said. “Last time I saw him, I was getting him a pillow and a blanket to stay in the living room for the night.” She’d placed a hand on his arm and given him a sympathetic look. “He told me he’d prefer to talk to you in the morning.”

“Well he hasn’t,” John had snapped, then immediately apologised. “I just…I just want this straightened out. The fact this even happened is ridiculous. _He’s_ being ridiculous.”

“Yes,” she’d stated. She’d pulled him over to her closet. “However, I have made him promise to show up tonight before our Lucia excursion begins. You shall see him then. In the meanwhile, you can try on your outfit again. I have made the necessary adjustments to it.”

John had sighed as she fished out the Caspar-cum-Star-Boy costume. “Perfect. Just the thing I needed,” he’d grumbled under his breath. “How do you know he’ll show up anyway?”

“He would not dare break a promise to me,” she’d stated, with a smirk.

But now, standing beside her in the gift-sorting room with a basket of cooling saffron buns, John was beginning to think Sherlock _might_ , in fact, break a promise to his mother. By his watch, it was two minutes to six—the time they’d agreed to start the excursion—but there wasn’t the slightest sign that anyone would be coming down the hallway.

He looked to Mummy Holmes, who was wearing a simple long-sleeved white robe and a leafy crown of unlit candles. There was a small, disappointed wrinkle knitting itself between her eyebrows as she stared down the hallway. John sighed, then straightened his shoulders and unconsciously let his spare hand fall to the hilt of the sword belted to his side—which actually _was_ a real sword, he’d been surprised to learn.

“C’mon, let’s get going, Mum,” he told her.

She turned and gave him a rather annoyed look. “We shall leave at six, John, and not a minute before then,” she declared, then leaned forward to adjust his gleaming circlet of stars. “You keep moving this.”

“It feels awkward where you keep putting it,” John retorted, as she tilted it up and back a bit more. She then fussed over the position of the multiple star-motif necklaces she’d forced him to wear so that they fell in symmetrical perfection over his chest, then flicked the white fur trim of his borrowed blue overcoat out of the way so he couldn’t hide behind it. John sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling, feeling approximately six again, like when his own mum had fussed over him before the professional family photos were taken.

Footsteps came tromping down the hallway at thirty seconds to six o’clock. John tensed into battle mode. “Took you long enough,” he muttered stiffly, looking over.

Sherlock came scowling in, saying, “Yes, well—” and then stopped dead on seeing John. He blinked several times, furrowed his eyebrows, then slowly turned his gaze to his mother. He placed his hands behind his back. “…I’m just here to light the candles,” he stated, after a slight clearing of his throat.

Mummy Holmes glided towards her son with a delicate smile, placing a hand briefly on his cheek. “You have my thanks, Sherlock. It is certainly more convenient to have the security of magic flame as opposed to the usual; I would prefer not to have wax drip into my hair.”

Sherlock just hummed a noncommittal noise and brought his hands in front of him again, starting to rub them together and carefully not looking elsewhere but at his hands.

John stared at him, growing increasingly aggravated that he was being so blatantly ignored as Sherlock ignited a flame between his palms and started lighting his mother’s candle-crown one stick at a time. His hands squeezed around the basket handle and the hilt of his sword.

Sherlock finished lighting the candles and extinguished the fire in his palm with a somewhat unnecessary flourish. He gave his mother a curt nod. “Good luck,” he stated, turning on his heel without so much as a glance at John and heading towards the exit.

Flattening his mouth in a straight line, John tried to keep himself centred, his knuckles whitening as he clenched the sword and basket. He let Sherlock get as far as the door.

“I’m _sorry_ , okay?!” he snapped, turning and marching after Sherlock, who’d frozen in the entryway. John halted next to him and risked a glance at his face—which looked, to John’s surprise, pale with fear—before immediately redirecting his gaze to Sherlock’s shoulder, closing his eyes, and taking a deep breath. He opened his eyes again and looked back to Sherlock’s face, where the fear had disappeared in place of shiny-eyed confusion. John felt his jaw clench and consciously forced the muscle to relax. “Look,” he said, calmly. “I don’t know…” He closed his eyes again, took another deep breath, and let it out. Opened his eyes again. “I don’t know what else you want me to say. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that this happened, and I’m sorry if I hurt you in any way. This wasn’t…none of this should have happened, and I’m sorry for the part I had in it.”

John waited, feeling his jaw clench again, and braved himself into looking Sherlock in the eye.

Sherlock stared back at him, wordless, and blinked some more, eyebrows still knit together. He briefly turned his head to the side, then looked back to John. His mouth tightened. His gaze flickered up and down, and his eyebrows lifted. He straightened his posture and placed his hands behind his back once more, looking in the space above John’s shoulder before shifting his gaze fully back to John’s eyes.

Sherlock’s eyebrows furrowed again, but then his lips quirked gently upwards. He cleared his throat. “You…look…”

John raised his eyes to the ceiling and sighed in annoyance. “Yes, I know. You don’t need to say it,” he grumbled, drowning out the mumbled adjective. “I’m perfectly aware of how ridiculous I look without you rubbing it in right now, thanks.”

When he looked down, he found Sherlock glaring at him; almost instantly, the glare replaced itself with a more neutral expression. Sherlock cleared his throat again, then paused for a beat. “Regal,” he stated.

John blinked, head rearing back slightly. He waited for the joke. Then waited some more. “Really?” he said, incredulous.

“Well, as regal as a king can look with half of my mother’s jewellery case dumped on him,” Sherlock replied. His face stayed bland for another moment, then cracked into a smile.

John couldn’t help it—he chuckled, and immediately felt relief rush through him. He chuckled some more. “Well, this get-up definitely wasn’t my idea, I assure you. It was this or pointy hats. Though I’m beginning to think I should’ve gone with them after all.”

Sherlock wrinkled his nose in distaste. “Hardly. Between looking like the village idiot and the Persian equivalent of a Renaissance Faire vendor, you have picked the less humiliating experience.”

“Speak for yourself,” John retorted. “Though you hardly seemed to mind ‘village idiot’ when you were five.”

Sherlock glared at him.

“We _were_ just looking at your baby pictures,” John said, smiling.

“ _Evidently_ ,” Sherlock said, with no small amount of displeasure. He turned to look behind him into the gift-sorting room, which immediately pulled his mouth into a frown. “ _Mummy_.”

John turned as well and spotted Mrs. Holmes holding her hands in the ‘mental picture’ position. She blinked at them, then lowered her hands.

“The two of you form a picturesque study in contrasts,” she declared. “It would be a pity not to store the image.”

Sherlock snorted sceptically. John quite frankly had to agree with him. She just smiled and came towards them, taking John by the arm. “I am afraid I need to borrow him,” she said to Sherlock. “As we really must start our procession.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and waved at them with a shooing motion, and John felt himself being dragged over to the fireplace. He looked over his shoulder and saw Sherlock coming back into the room, where he proceeded to stretch out on the bench like a lazy cat.

“You’re staying?” he asked as Mummy Holmes poured the magic ash into the fire.

“I have nowhere else I need to be,” Sherlock replied, then closed his eyes.

*** 

St. Lucia’s Day, as it turned out, meant two different things between Italy and the Scandinavian countries. In Italy, the practice was relatively simple—it was like St. Nick’s Day had been; they snuck in, delivered the sweets, and left. However, in the northern countries, it seemed that St. Lucia was actually expected to make a public appearance and sing a few carols for those whom she visited. This was somewhat problematic for John, who could not speak let alone _sing_ anything in Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, or any other languages relevant to those areas, so instead he ended up awkwardly humming an accompaniment whenever Mummy Holmes was made to sing the _Santa Lucia_.[17] The people they visited didn’t seem to mind, though—as Mrs. Holmes explained to him at one point, she and John were only covering for a few of the places that, for whatever reason, didn’t have a locally elected Lucia coming in, so they were always greeted with a warm welcome. Especially in the case of the retirement communities and nursing homes they visited, where John usually found himself in the middle of a throng of little old widows who were quite content to titter at him, cackle what he assumed were Scandinavian innuendos at him, and of course grope him. John didn’t especially mind (well, he may have minded Lotta—Lotta was a bit _too_ friendly), because the way he saw it, he was just helping to spread the good cheer around, but all the same he rather wished that Mummy Holmes and Sherlock would quit looking so sadistically _amused_ whenever they returned from those visits.

The night passed by relatively quickly—with the smaller global audience and the simplicity of handing out sweets rather than individual presents, there wasn’t much to complicate things. The only thing to really bother John throughout the excursion was that he was a bit on the chilly side of comfortable at times, though the heavy jacket did help to a degree. When Mrs. Holmes declared their task done, John looked at his watch to find that it was only eleven.

“Certainly a lot better than last time,” he commented as they stepped through the fire portal one last time.

“Perhaps because we managed to resolve the tantrum beforehand,” Mummy Holmes commented drily.

Sherlock sprang up from the bench with a stretch. “Ah, excellent,” he yawned. “You’re _finally_ finished.”

John lightly thwacked him with the basket as they crossed the room out into the hallway. “You lazy sod, you’ve been lying on your arse all day. You have no reason to be tired.”

“Boredom is a state of exhaustion, John, you wouldn’t understand,” Sherlock protested, following John and Mummy out to the dining hall, where they all had an incredibly late supper of cuccia,[18] leftover saffron buns, and gingernut biscuits.

For John, it was a slow and steady plunge toward tired contentment. His belly was full of honey and bread, he’d finally— _finally_ —gotten to do something useful again for the first time in days, and Sherlock was beside him looking comfortable and drowsy, sipping at a dark red cabernet. The sight reminded John of the morning of St. Nicholas Day, when they’d both been too exhausted to put up a fight with each other, and of the soft warm haze of comfort and ease that had followed. His lips stretched in a smile, with a slight burn where the bite was recovering from the hot/cold temperature onslaught it had faced during the day, and he felt a spark of surprise when Sherlock suddenly caught his eye and smiled back.

“Mm, tired,” John mumbled, then yawned. “If it’s all right by you, I’d rather go to bed.”

“S’fine by me,” Sherlock rumbled back, setting down his glass unfinished.

John stretched and turned to say goodnight to Mrs. Holmes, only to find that she’d vanished. “Where’d your mum go?” he asked, surprised.

“She said goodnight five minutes ago, John. You weren’t paying attention,” Sherlock answered, standing up.

“Oh,” John said with a mild frown, standing up as well. “I didn’t even hear her leave. I must be more tired than I thought.”

To which Sherlock said nothing, he just patiently waited until John had fully extricated himself from the table and was ready to walk back to their room.

They walked in peace, the sound of their footsteps the only things stirring in the hush of the North Pole. John idly played with the star bobbles on one of his necklaces as he quietly clinked down the hallway.

“It’ll be good to get out of all this. No offense to your mum, but it’s really not my taste.”

Sherlock made a brief noise of acknowledgement and suddenly turned his head away to one side, though not before John caught the glimpse of a wide grin.

John sighed through his nose, far more amused than annoyed now. “Go on, laugh it out while you still got the chance,” he said, smiling.

“No, no,” Sherlock said, still grinning. “You really do look quite dignified, John.”

“Yeah, for a Chippendale dancer, maybe,” John replied, which succeeded in making Sherlock break into a low but hearty chuckle.

They reached their door and turned to each other with a fond look.

“Don’t wake me up tomorrow with the violin,” John told him, tilting his jaw upwards.

“Mm,” Sherlock acknowledged with a tender smile, before bending down and pressing his mouth just slightly off-centre against John’s, carefully avoiding the bruise as best he could. He pulled back, and John noted that the smile had extended to the corners of his eyes, where they wrinkled in matching crow’s feet. They gazed at each other a moment more, and John felt surrounded in warmth.

Moving inside, John fetched his sleep clothes and carried them into the bathroom. He took off the heavy overcoat and hung it on the towel hook, followed by the circlet of stars. Then, one by one, he removed the necklaces—all six of them—and hung them with the cloak, intending to return them all the next day. He unhitched the belted scabbard and propped it up against a wall, but not before he snuck one more admiring glance at the gleaming metal underneath. He might have to ask Mrs. Holmes about keeping it.

The belt was proving more difficult. On top of the faint layer of rust that Mrs. Holmes had been unable to clean off from the juncture between the prong and the frame, the buckle had also had to put up with the cold and hot fluctuations from going in and out of fire into Scandinavian air, which was generally not good for metal. Furthermore, Mrs. Holmes had notched it tight, and John was rather reluctant to break what was apparently a family heirloom.

After his twelfth attempt, John gave up. He went into the bedroom and just said, “Help.”

Sherlock was lying on the bed, already changed into his pyjamas, and twiddling his thumbs. He lifted his head and raised an eyebrow. “Having trouble?” he asked, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side.

“Yes,” John said bluntly. “It refuses to come off. And I’d rather not break it.”

“So you’d rather _I_ break it?” Sherlock said with a smirk.

“It’s _your_ heirloom. If anyone’s allowed to break it, it’d be you.”

Sherlock regarded the star buckle and experimentally pulled on it, which merely succeeded in bringing John a step closer.

“That’s not how you get a belt off, Sherlock.”

“Says the man who’s been trying to get a belt off for seven minutes on his own,” Sherlock retorted. He yanked the star cover up and grasped the loose end of the leather. He pulled the leather the wrong way, regarding the stubborn prong with a critical eye. He stuck a finger in behind it and pulled. It did not budge from the frame. “Huh,” said Sherlock.

“Told you.”

Sherlock gave him a cocky look and suddenly dropped to his knees. John jumped, startled, only to have one of Sherlock’s hands hold him in place at the waist. “Relax, John, I’m something of a cracksman and amateur locksmith when the situation calls for it. A mere belt is not beyond my measure.” He looked up at John and rumbled, “Suck it in.”

John turned a light pink, sighed, and did so. Which is when Sherlock tried to squeeze the life out of him with the belt, dug his fingers in underneath the prong, and pulled— _hard_ —once, twice, and a third time, causing the prong to break off entirely. John breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thanks,” he said, as Sherlock slowly unlooped the end of the leather from the dismantled buckle and let the belt fall to the floor. The ends of his white-gold star jacket fell open. “I just hope the glitter didn’t spread,” he joked. “’Cause there are some places glitter just should not be on a man.”

Sherlock’s grip tightened on his waist. John glanced down in confusion. “Sherlock?”

John felt the warm breath of Sherlock’s sigh against the skin of his stomach, followed by the immediate sharp coolness that ensued in its absence. Goosebumps cascaded up his arms. In the back of his mind, he heard the tinny peal of a warning bell in the interval that Sherlock failed to look up or move away.

Then, at last, Sherlock lifted his eyes, and John felt his breath hitch.

Some time, a long time ago, John had learnt that the hottest stars burned blue-white. The knowledge had confounded his tiny little mind, to know that stars came in different colours, that cold icy water blue could, in another time, in another space, another form, transform into the hottest temperature imaginable and burn you up in less than a second.

He was looking into stars.

Slowly, for an age, Sherlock got to his feet, gaze tidally locked with John’s. He raised a hand and lightly smoothed his fingertips across John’s jawline, toward his mouth, and the only thing John could think of was: _But it’s not the door_.

“I know,” Sherlock whispered, eyes holding John’s captive. He delicately ran his thumb across the bite mark, eyebrows knitting together as flickers of concern and guilt danced in his eyes.

John felt the sensitised nerves lighting up at the touch, and he shivered, mouth parting reflexively. _But it’s not the door_ , he thought again, in a haze.

“I know,” Sherlock murmured, the starlight of his eyes falling behind a curtain as he leaned forward and gently, tenderly soothed the wounded lip with his own.

John gasped, his eyes falling closed, for a moment lost in the singing of his over-sensitised nerve cells, in the simple touch of soft and warm. _But it’s not the door_ , his brain whispered to him, and for a minute he ignored it, because Sherlock was slowly progressing to a sweet onslaught of his upper lip, and John was paralyzed with indecision about where he should put his hands—shoulders? neck? back? hair? God, hair. Of course. Hair all the way. He buried his fingers in the lush snowy curls and couldn’t hold back a small appreciative noise at the soft, rich texture, and he distantly registered Sherlock breathing out a little moan while John raked his fingertips up the back of Sherlock’s neck. Their mouths moved together with the slow, careful deliberation of dancers learning the steps of a new routine, and with the ease of those who’ve known each other for far longer than they can remember.

But when he felt the slick, tentative caresses of a tongue against his own, John experienced an unnerving sense of déjà vu, a feeling like drowning, and suddenly the reminder that _THIS WAS NOT THE DOOR_ rang like a siren in his ear. Gasping for air, John pulled back, discovering that at some point Sherlock had caged his face in with both hands.

“What?” John breathed, trying to blink back to awareness.

Sherlock was gazing at him with what could only be described as ‘blissful contentment,’ idly rubbing a thumb against John’s cheek. “Yes,” he breathed back.

John blinked a whole lot more, hearing his mum’s voice somewhere in his memory saying ‘Don’t stare directly at the sun, John, you’ll hurt your eyes.’ “Huh?” he tried again.

“Yes,” Sherlock repeated, smiling. “I’m saying yes. For consent. I’m told that is essential.”

John felt his mind drive headlong into a wall, airbags exploding. “ _What?_ ” he tried again.

Sherlock raised a quizzical eyebrow at him. “You’re almost endearingly incoherent when you’re flustered,” he said, one hand trailing down from John’s ear to curl around the back of his neck. “Sex, John.”

“ _What!_ ” John blurted, reeling backwards out of Sherlock’s arms and into a wardrobe.

Sherlock blinked at him, arms still outstretched in an empty embrace. “You’re confused,” Sherlock said, sounding confused himself. “Why are you confused?”

“What do you _mean_ why am I confused?!” John stammered. “You don’t— _you don’t_ —” He waved madly between them. “You don’t _do_ this—this sort of thing—you _don’t!_ Sherlock, you _don’t!_ ”

Sherlock pulled a mild frown and took a step forward. “Well, I want to.”

John veered sideways towards the door, still staring wide-eyed at Sherlock. “But—But _no_ ,” he protested. “You can’t just—you can’t just suddenly—this doesn’t just _happen_ , Sherlock, where the _hell_ did this come from?!”

Sherlock stopped moving towards him, frown lines deepening as he crossed his arms. “John, surely even _you_ can make a few inferences.”

John, currently in a frantic whirl of shock, somehow managed to scrape together a few of the clues: Sherlock had been _jealous_ , not just as a friend, but the biting—the biting, that was physical, possessive, and so fucking _obvious_ now. The excuses Sherlock had been dreaming up over the past few days to get John out of the room just so he could come back and kiss him. John looked past Sherlock and noticed for the first time that their beds had been pushed together. “ _Oh god_ ,” he gasped, backpedalling.

Sherlock furrowed his eyebrows together and started towards John again. “John, you’re being needlessly hysterical. I’ll admit, even I was a bit surprised to learn you were in love with me at first, but I didn’t turn into a panicked rabbit over it. I considered your feelings, took some time to evaluate my own, then endeavoured to start a conversation about it. Not that you got the hint the first time,” he said, sending John an annoyed look. “Remind me not to take my mother’s advice in that field. Clearly indirect methods do not work on you.”

John just stared at him, his mind lost in the clouds of fallout. “I’m…I’m not in love with you,” he said at last, picking out the one thing Sherlock had said that he could understand.

“John, you’ve been in love with me since St. Nicholas Day,” Sherlock scoffed, standing directly in front of John once more. “At the very least, though perhaps before then as well—I can’t be certain on that mark. But you’ve been subconsciously acting on your attraction to me since then, and it’s why you were—” Sherlock paused, clearly rethinking his phrasing. “It’s why I believed you were attracted to my mother, because you were drawn to my likeness.”

John just started shaking his head. “No. No, Sherlock, this isn’t…” he said, stepping out of reach and starting to pace the floor, still shaking his head.

“ _John_ ,” Sherlock groaned in exasperation, grasping at John’s arm.

John flinched and broke away from the hold. “This doesn’t just _happen!_ ” he snapped, placing his hands on hips. “For god’s sake, Sherlock! How the hell do you think I can—Jesus Christ, how do you expect me to just…we’ve been flatmates for over a year, nearly _two_ years now, and this has _never…_ Sherlock, _none_ of this has ever crossed my mind. _None of it_ ,” he said frantically, turning to pace the floor again.

“You’re lying,” Sherlock retorted, exasperation flowing into anger. “I’ve _heard_ it cross your mind more than once, John, why are you denying it?”

John froze and sent him a peeved glare. So the bastard _had_ been listening in on the morning of St. Nicholas Day, even though he’d _told_ him not to. “It was _once_ , Sherlock. _Once_ , and then I bloody well let it go because there wasn’t any _point!_ ” he hissed, crossing his arms again and looking away.

For a long moment, they said nothing. John tried to calm himself down, still feeling the scatter-pat rhythm of his heart in a panic and the tantalizing tingle and throb across his lips, his brain looping an echo of the kiss over and over. He licked his lips and tasted traces of cabernet sauvignon and Sherlock on him. His eyes strayed to the bed, and he realised with a twisted sense of horror and guilt that Sherlock had turned down the covers on John’s side for him. This somehow broke the last thread of his composure, and he swivelled toward the door, throwing it open and marching out.

“John!”

John felt Sherlock’s hand close around his wrist, and he stumbled to a stop and looked back. Sherlock had lunged half of his body out of the bedroom to grab him, keeping one foot in the room and one hand holding himself up on the doorframe.

“John, where are you going?” Sherlock pleaded, and John saw the misty vulnerability in his eyes that he always hated to see, because he never knew what to do with that, never knew how to fix that, and today was no exception.

“I can’t do this, I just can’t,” John stammered. “I can’t do this right now, I’m sorry.” And he broke away from Sherlock’s grip and took long, fast strides away, not daring to look back. He charged past the living room, knowing that’s where Sherlock would first think to find him, and kept going into the atrium, turning down a hallway at random, ignoring the doors on either side of him, until he reached the end.

It was a recreation room of some sort, clearly intended for the elves by the height of the furniture, with a few scattered sofas, card tables, a small kitchenette, and an air hockey table which was technically an _ice_ hockey table, but clearly with the game design of the former. The room was currently empty, which was exactly what John needed.

He carefully sat down in front of a sofa and rested his head on the tiny cushions, staring up at the ceiling and letting his legs stretch across the floor. He took deep breaths and rested his hands on his bare stomach, belatedly realising that he was still in the Star Boy costume, and just…tried to forget what had happened.

But he knew it was seared on him now.

The transmogrification of Sherlock’s eyes into stars.

The bruise on his lip.

The feel of his hair beneath his fingers.

He couldn’t just _forget_ that it had happened.

John squeezed his eyes shut and worried. This could all go wrong. This _had_ gone all wrong. They’d been _happy_. John had been expecting to go on some boring errand with his best friend, possibly help with paperwork, and be back solving crimes before Christmas. He hadn’t signed up for crises of morality and magical mandatory kissing and Sherlock propositioning him for sex. He hadn’t wanted any of this to happen. None of it.

He sighed and pressed his fingers into the faint outline of the star buckle imprinted in his skin.

 _‘You will be getting to know each other better,’_ Mummy Holmes had said.

He was learning more twists and turns to Sherlock in the past week than he had in two years of living with him. John couldn’t deny that.

But John couldn’t help but fear that, somewhere in her prophesy, there lurked a hidden message, an apocryphal instruction, the true key to unleashing the full implications of what her words entailed—and the secret was encapsulated in a phrase that every mortal dreaded above all others, for it forced a soul to look into a mirror and see, through all its scars, at last, what it had become.

 _‘To know each other better,’_ John heard, in the hollow voice of Snegurochka Holmes, _‘you must first know yourself.’_

 

* * *

 

[12] **Saint Lucia's Day** is the church feast day dedicated to Lucia of Syracuse (Saint Lucy) and is observed on December 13 th most commonly in Italy and the Scandinavian countries. (So...apparently my map doesn't want to show up here, but [regardez ici for the map](http://canolacrush.tumblr.com/post/83979242636/countries-that-celebrate-st-lucias-day-december).)  In traditional celebrations in Scandinavia, Saint Lucia comes as a young woman with lights and sweets—in processions, there’s usually a girl designated to be “Lucia” who wears a crown of candles, followed by other girls (and nowadays boys too) holding a candle each. Prior to the Christianized St. Lucy’s Day, the precedent in Scandinavia was _Lussinatta_ (Lussi Night) in which Lussi, a female being with evil traits, was said to ride through the air with her followers (the _Lussiferda)_. This might be an echo of the Wild Hunt, which was found across Northern, Western, and Central Europe. Between Lussi Night and Yule, trolls and evil spirits, in some accounts also the spirits of the dead, were thought to be active outside. How things change over time, eh?

[13] The “star boys” ( _stjärngossar)_ in the Lucia processions in Scandinavia typically look like the gentlemen you see in this picture: 

and they generally just chill and sing along with the procession. The alternate “star boys” from the “slightly wrong holiday” that Mrs. Holmes is referring to are actually associated with Epiphany (on Jan. 6)—in which kids dress up as the Magi, carry a star around on a stick, and sing carols and reenact the Visit of the Magi for people (usually in exchange for some money or sweets).

[14] The very first thing you have to understand about the Biblical Magi is that probably 90% of the stuff that is said about them is not really based in fact—who they were, where they came from, if they even existed, etc.—it’s largely just based on speculation and people going “hey, that sounds like a neat detail to add.” Caspar/Gaspar/Kaspar (however you want to spell it) is supposedly based off the historical king Gondophares I, founder of the Indo-Parthian Kingdom (established around 20 BCE). Oh wait, what’s that? You want a map? OF COURSE YOU DO, MAPS ARE AWESOME. 

As you can see, the Kingdom covered parts of present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, which I found REMARKABLY CONVENIENT FOR MY PURPOSES OHOHOHOHOHO. As to Gondophares _actually_ being one of the Magi, it seems highly unlikely, since he seems to have died before Jesus was born. OH CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS, YOU’RE SO HISTORICALLY INCONSISTENT.

[15] Parthian fashion was a strange, strange thing, and it took me awhile to figure out what they meant by “gartered trousers.” It’s easier if I just show you. Here’s a statue of a Parthian nobleman (housed at Tehran’s Iran Bastan Museum): 

Note the sexy bear jacket and the billowy trousers that, for some reason, cut off before they reach the end of said sexy bear jacket. In addition, here is an artistic representation of the strange trousers-but-not-trousers being hooked to the end of a tunic (regard the guy in the blue sexy bear jacket): 

Also, I’d like to take this time to mention that Gondophares I sort of looked like a pirate with all his king bling: 

Oh Parthians. You and your trousers that don’t reach your bums and sexy bear jackets and king bling. Although Mrs. Holmes is a stickler for her outfits to be historically accurate, she took pity on John (and her husband) and let them wear modern _shalwar_ trousers instead:

[16] Also called St. Lucia Buns ( _lussekatt_ ), they are spiced sweet buns flavoured with saffron and cinnamon (or nutmeg) and contain currants. BEHOLD:

[17] It’s rather pretty to listen to—I recommend you give it a listen [here](http://youtu.be/Mk0FyZqNp5Q). (They’re singing in Swedish, but there’s an English translation provided in the “About” section of the vid.)

[18] A primarily Sicilian dish containing boiled wheatberries and sugar (often mixed with ricotta and honey) (or sometimes served as a savoury soup with beans—there isn’t really a consensus of what’s in it), which is traditionally eaten on December 13, the feast day of Saint Lucia, the patron saint of Siracusa (Syracuse). It commemorates the relief from a food shortage in Sicily and the unexpected arrival of a cargo of wheat, which tradition says arrived in the port of Palermo on Saint Lucia's Feast in 1646.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N** :  
> 1\. I apologize profusely for the ridiculous number of footnotes in this chapter.  
> 2\. I WARNED YOU, BRO! I WARNED YOU ABOUT THE SLOW BUILD AND THE UST! I WARNED YOU!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's been reading and commenting so far--I hope you enjoyed Part 2! My beta and I are steadily at work on Part 3; she's got half of it in her grasp at this point in time, and I've got a chapter and a bit left to physically write. This is mostly a note for any new readers just coming in, since all of you were extremely good about being patient with the last hiatus, but **Warning** : please do not send me any messages asking when it will be next updated; doing so will result in me deliberately setting back the publishing date an entire week for every "when will you update?" and its variances I receive. You have been warned. Other than that one small pet peeve of mine, I'm very happy to answer any other questions you might have and they are always welcome! Hope you've enjoyed your stay!


	12. Water and Ice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N** : Hello again, dear readers! Thank you for being absolutely wonderful and patient for all this time; I have the best readers, truly. <3 Also, I'd like to send yet another shout-out to Christopher Plummer (aka Shaindy) for betaing this section--for killing my interrobangs and everything else. ;-)
> 
> IMPORTANT: Readers, did you notice? THE RATING HAS CHANGED (as I said it would). I shall take this time to warn you now: it's not within my policy to warn at the start of any chapter if there's sexy times. So from here on out, tread carefully with each chapter. The sexy times are hiding like erotic land mines, and you'll never know when you come across them. THEY COULD HAPPEN ANYWHERE, AT ANY MOMENT, SO ARM YOURSELVES. Now, without further ado, I'll leave you to your reading. :D

 

Part III: Christmas

Ch 12: Water and Ice

John had a powerful crick in his neck when he awoke, and his shoulder was stiff as a board. He groaned, wincing as he sat up, and tried to rub out the pain in his neck with one hand. A comically small blanket that had been resting across his stomach fell to his lap. John carefully looked to his right and saw six elves watching him, who were practically vibrating with nervous tension.

“Good morning, John Watson,” they said in unison, quietly.

“Morning,” he mumbled back, still cringing at the pain in his neck and shoulder. “Sorry I’m in your space.”

“Oh, we don’t mind that,” said one of them, who reminded John a little of Molly in the unobtrusive way she held herself and from the brown earnestness of her eyes. “You’re always welcome among us, John Watson.”

He offered her a bit of a wan yet grateful smile.

“Tiff with the Master, I’ll take it?” said another one, who looked like a gnarly old gardener type. “Seeing as you’re here and everyone woke up feeling at sixes and sevens.”

John clenched his jaw, feeling like a football had been kicked into his gut. “Something like that,” he managed, after a moment.

“Never you worry, love,” said a third, coming forward to pat his arm in a Mrs. Hudson-ly sort of way. “That one’s always been a temperamental sort, ever since he was little wee. He usually bobs back into place after a bit.”

John privately thought that this wouldn’t fix itself as easily as that, but he wasn’t in a mood to quibble. Instead he just sort of nodded and half-smiled in agreement. “We can hope,” he murmured, feeling hopeless.

A small fourth one shuffled forward and mutely placed a neatly folded stack of clothes on John’s knee. A fifth standing next to the fourth—possibly a sibling; she had the same heterochromatic eyes as the small boy-elf—said, “The Master told us you might be needing these.”

“Oh,” said John, picking up the stack and briefly rifling through the fresh set of clothes. Apparently Sherlock didn’t want him coming back to the room yet. Which suited John just fine. It was more than fine, really. Better than fine. “Tell him I said thank you.”

“Can’t,” said the last elf, a glasses-wearing tomboyish sort. “He’s sortin’ now. Won’t be hearin’ much.”

“Oh,” said John again. He fiddled with the cuff of a shirt. He really, really wished he could go for a walk somewhere. Anywhere, as long as it was away from the vicinity of Sherlock. He was desperate for a pub, where he could sit and have a pint and not have anyone he knew hovering over him. He sighed. “How long’s he been at it, then?” he asked, slowly getting to his feet and being careful not to jostle his neck one way or the other too much.

“A few hours,” said the Molly-ish one.

“ _Matushka_ told us to come and get ya,” said the tomboy one.

“Did she,” John stated. A lump of dread settled in the pit of his stomach, and he sighed. He gestured to the clothes. “Could you show me somewhere I can change?” he asked.

“Absolutely, love,” said the third. “You just follow me now.”

He followed her to a tiny bathroom where he had to duck his head to get under the doorway, but he managed to change with only a few winces as he stretched out his shoulder and neck. He looked at his reflection in the tiny mirror and wearily studied the stubble growth on his face, the dark skin under his eyes, and the healing mark on his lip. He closed his eyes and pressed his mouth into a firm line. Memories of last night pounded inside his head like rain on a tin roof, impossible to drown out. How the _hell_ were they supposed to face each other now?

Sighing slowly through his nose, he opened his eyes again, offering himself a sardonic half-smile, wondering who this pale-faced coward was and where the John Watson _he_ knew had gone. The John Watson he knew charged into battle without hesitation, chatted up the ladies without fear, and walked with confidence. He wasn’t a wilting flower collapsing in the sun. He was a goddamn cactus.

Yet two years ago, he’d been an entirely different John Watson, too. He’d limped into London feeling defeated by a bullet that wasn’t even in his leg and had wandered aimlessly, emptily.

Maybe consistency wasn’t his strong point. He flowed from one point to the next, stagnating at blockages, running swiftly when freed, evaporating and solidifying when necessary, pooling comfortably for a while before sluicing away to something new and exciting, like a waterfall.

Maybe _Sherlock_ was the goddamn cactus. John immediately snorted at the thought and shook his head. _No_ , he thought, _Sherlock would never be sessile if he could help it—and as far as I can tell, he exists on nothing but air most days_.

Which made what happened last night all the more…frightening, if John were truly honest with himself. This wasn’t how Sherlock was supposed to _be_ : he didn’t put up with the dirt and grime that most people rooted themselves in—food, sleep, money, politeness, _sex_. If Sherlock was rooted to anything, anything at _all_ , it was to blood splatters, knives, microscopes, and intrigue. Full stop. This wasn’t the Sherlock Holmes that John knew, and that’s what John was so wary of—normal Sherlock he could handle just fine, not Sherlock-who-kissed-like-a-champion-seducer.

And that was just the thing, wasn’t it? Sherlock _hadn’t_ been acting like himself lately—with some due cause, what with being Father Christmas and all. Maybe the Obligation had somehow made him more… _human_ than usual? Sherlock was essentially being forced to practice empathy and compassion in order to get the job done, and he had that _literal_ mind-reading ability to muddle the logical lifestyle he pursued.

So was this whole disaster really because Sherlock had picked up on that one blip John had had a week ago? Jesus. This was one hell of a mess.

God, and he was so _tired_ of fixing the messes. He hadn’t had to fix so many messes between them before. That was usually _Sherlock’s_ job—since it was usually _his_ fault, and clearly, John wasn’t as good at this sort of thing as he should be, because _this just kept happening_ and it _shouldn’t_. He thumped a fist on top of the sink counter and sighed. He couldn’t just keep apologising over and over all the time. Not for this— _this_ wasn’t his fault, _this_ was a misunderstanding gone wrong, and how in the hell had Sherlock expected him to be a mind-reader and just _know_ what he was thinking? _John_ wasn’t the temporarily telepathic genius around here!

Unfortunately, he couldn’t stay in this tiny bathroom forever. For one thing, he had to return the Star Boy costume to Mrs. Holmes, and chances were she’d be with Sherlock in the sorting room. Though on the bright side, one of the elves had said that Sherlock was sorting and wouldn’t be paying much attention to anything around him, so maybe John could sneak in and out without having to talk to Sherlock at all—though eluding Mummy Holmes’s curiosity would be a challenge.

He could only hope.

John thanked the elf who’d led him to the bathroom and made his way to the atrium, glancing at Sherlock’s bee ornament along the way, then marched down the bow-marked hall. He sent a curt nod to today’s Sock Elf and Sleigh Elves and entered the room just as Sherlock declared, “ _No, sleigh_.”

It took John a moment to fully register the sight in front of him.

It _was_ Sherlock, he was fairly certain, but…different. The icicles hanging down from his arms were definitely new. The coat had somehow changed to a strangely transparent fabric edged in white fur, and the rest of his clothes were now the stark hue of bleached bone. Frost snaked out in a wide circle around Sherlock’s shoes, and he was staring golden-eyed into nothing, holding his arms out emptily.

“Ash, Oliver,” said one of the elves in the line.

“ _Yes, fire._ ”

John gaped, blinking himself out of shock, and turned to see Mrs. Holmes sitting on the bench, her arms crossed, giving him a cool look. He hesitantly started toward her, holding out the pieces of his costume like a peace offering. She took them wordlessly and raised an eyebrow.

“What happened?” John whispered.

“You would know better than I do,” she retorted.

“I really don’t,” John protested weakly, glancing toward Sherlock.

She narrowed her eyes, and John was alarmed to see that they’d acquired that near-white hue that made it seem like she didn’t have irises at all. “Yes. You do,” she said.

Something in the tone of her voice made the hair stand on the back of his neck, and he realised the true fear of someone who’d accidentally harmed the cub of a mother bear. “It was…It was…” he whispered, some part of his animal hindbrain frantically telling him _‘Look away, look away, you idiot, don’t make direct eye contact that triggers an attack_.’ “It was…I didn’t mean to…I _couldn’t_ ,” he said at last. “I had no idea, I had absolutely no idea he was…and it was all just _happening_ ,” he pleaded, frozen in the unnatural pinpoint glare of her colourless eyes.

“And in the carelessness of fear, you’ve sown such a seed,” she said, jerking her chin towards her son, briefly breaking eye contact. “Rather than have the courage to come to some sort of understanding that would have avoided this.”

“I had no idea ‘ _this_ ’ would even happen!” John snapped, exhausted and angry and sick to death of being blamed for Sherlock’s emotional hissy fits.

“ _Humans_ ,” she seethed, standing up from the bench and towering over him. “You are the blindest creatures I’ve ever observed. You are blind to your own natures, and you are blind to the damage you inflict on your own kind and on all other kinds. I’ve met _trees_ with more sight than the whole lot of you!”

“What the hell do you expect me to do?!” John argued. “I’m not bloody _omniscient_ and I sure as hell am not Sherlock Holmes, or _any_ Holmes, for that matter. I can’t just flounce into a room and magically know my best friend fancies a shag and go along with it like it’s a bloody walk in the park! He’s my _best friend_ and he’s _never_ done anything like this before!”

Mummy huffed, continuing to stare daggers at him, before she eventually turned her gaze away and let her shoulders relax a little. She looked to her son, where he was standing completely inert, and John became aware of the silence in the room and the dozens of eyes fixed on him. He flushed but kept his chin held high. He wasn’t going to be embarrassed for acting like a reasonable human being.

“Forgive me,” Mummy murmured. “I lived without it for so long, I often forget the powerful influence fear can have on mortal lives. I see that your intentions were not cruel, John; you must understand, I reacted as a mother.” She looked back to John with a glimmer of a smile. “For lives so short, I imagine that change is a frequent cause for trepidation, with its seeming unpredictability and unknowable consequences. But I assure you, once you live long enough, novelty becomes illusion, and the old tricks that used to catch you unawares become predictable and vexingly transparent.”

John shifted his weight from one foot to the other, glancing down at the floor briefly before looking up again. “You sound like you know what’s going to happen,” he said, almost as a challenge.

Her smile stretched just a little. “I know how every story ends, John,” she confirmed. “Especially when it concerns my own son.”

John had no idea how to respond to that somewhat worrying piece of information, so instead he glanced over at Sherlock, who was still standing in a glowy-eyed trance and waiting for the next name to be read out. He cleared his throat. “How long’s he been at it, then?” he asked.

“About four hours,” Mrs. Holmes replied. “No doubt time for a break, though it _appears_ everyone has uniformly elected to cease working for some time now,” she added, with a bit of a stern note directed toward the elves.

The elves sheepishly fidgeted, embarrassed to be called out on eavesdropping so openly.

“What about Sherlock?” John asked, seeing as it looked like Sherlock wasn’t at all aware that break time had arrived.

“ _You_ may alert him,” Mrs. Holmes retorted, snapping her gaze back to John and crossing her arms. “ _I_ shall retrieve the tea tray.” She promptly started to walk out of the room.

“Uh, I could help you with—” John started, but she swiftly cut him off with an unambiguous “ _No_ ” as she clicked down the hall.

John sighed. Now he was left in a room full of curious elves and, worst of all, Sherlock. Straightening his spine, he sucked in a breath, clenched his fists, and marched over to stand next to him.

For a moment, he simply stared at the side of Sherlock’s face as he looked unseeingly ahead. There were bruise-coloured circles under the golden glow of his eyes, and John noted that his lips— _(no don’t think about his lips)_ —were so blue they were nearly black, which paged the doctor’s side of his brain into worrying about frostbite and gangrene _(could Sherlock even **get** frostbite when he was Father Christmas?)_. Most interestingly, John realised that frost had tinged Sherlock’s eyelashes and eyebrows, and that the white curls on his head had somehow frozen entirely, like a mop of tiny, kinked icicles.

He cleared his throat and said, “Sherlock.”

Sherlock failed to respond, so he tried thinking it at him instead: _Sherlock._

That succeeded in getting a number of successive blinks out of him, but either Sherlock was now choosing to pretend John was not there or it hadn’t broken through to him entirely to come out of his trance. John cautiously touched Sherlock’s elbow and said, “Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s arms and shoulders dropped, breaking off a few of the icicles hanging from his coat, and he blinked a few times more. He turned his head sharply to John, and his hair made a clinking sound as the curls bounced into each other. John involuntarily gasped in surprise—Sherlock’s eyes now had the same inhuman whiteness in them that Mrs. Holmes had sometimes, broken only by the suspension of two dark pupils in their centres.

“Hello, John,” Sherlock said tonelessly.

“Hi,” John replied, still a bit gobsmacked.

There was a strikingly painful pause.

Sherlock turned his head away. John stared, transfixed, at the ice formations that had suddenly blossomed on his ear, with a long spiralling icicle hanging off his lobe and a few crystallising frost flowers budding along the top ridge.

“Yes?” Sherlock intoned, his breath condensing in a cloud in front of him. He was staring straight ahead.

“Ah, they’re…they’re taking a break,” John remembered. “And you should, too.”

“Fine,” Sherlock replied, and without any warning, he started clomping away, his footfalls leaving cracked patterns of frost across the floor.

John dithered for a moment before concern won out, and he hustled after him, dodging the ice on the floor as best as he could. “Wait, Sherlock,” he called, following him into the atrium. “Christ, could you just hang on for a bleeding minute?”

“What for?” Sherlock replied, not even slowing as he turned down a path curiously marked with an apple over the entry.

“Your mum’s bringing tea.”

“What do I care for tea?”

“Well, could you hang on _anyway_?” John said, snagging him by the arm.

Sherlock stopped, but he fixed John with another unnerving stare. “What. _For?_ ” he repeated.

 _I’m not apologising_ , John thought to himself, and partly to Sherlock, wanting the idiot to hear that. He breathed in and out. “Are you okay?” he asked bluntly.

Sherlock blinked once to let him know that _that_ was a fairly stupid question. “What does it matter?” Sherlock countered.

“Well, you look…” John gestured vaguely at all of Sherlock. “…cold,” he finished lamely.

Sherlock looked as though he didn’t even want to deign that statement with a response. Eventually, though, he replied, “I have a genetic predisposition to it.”

“Right, okay,” John said and licked his chapped, bruised lips, which instantly and inconveniently made him recall the tenderness and savagery they’d been subjected to the day prior.

Beside him, Sherlock flinched and looked away. John looked down and to the side, wincing a little as his neck reminded him that it still hurt.

Because John was starting to learn that Sherlock never started these conversations unless prodded, he closed his eyes and said, “Yesterday…”

“Was a mistake,” Sherlock interrupted, which caused John to look up sharply and hiss at the twinge in his neck. Sherlock’s eyebrows furrowed, and he quietly added, “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” John muttered, rubbing at the kink with one hand. “Slept wrong is all.” He sighed, closed his eyes, hand still at his neck, and felt a sudden stab of unease in his stomach. “A mistake,” he prompted, opening his eyes again.

“Clearly,” Sherlock rumbled, subtly shifting back a step. It could just as well have been a chasm. Sherlock sighed and put his hands behind his back, standing straight and daring to make eye contact. “John, I am a Gift-Giver, and it is in the nature of my present occupation to know what people want. I believed…” and here, his voice drifted into an unusual softness. “…I believed it was what you wanted.”

John felt the stab turn infectious, and his throat felt dry. He swallowed and, damn his inconvenient brain, remembered the picture of Sherlock kneeling in front of him, looking up, with a bright blue burn of desire in his eyes—and immediately felt a powerful collision of _Yes_ and _No_. _Yes_ , _yes,_ and _yes_ —at the sight, the touch, the warmth, and the heady power of being _desired_ —and one thunderous clarion of _No_ , because he had no idea who that man had been in his arms, and everything had held the unstable mist of too much dreaming that night.

He wanted to say all of this, but the words caught with a clatter in his teeth, and what came out instead was, “I’m not a child.”

Sherlock blinked and said, haltingly, “I am – aware.”

John cleared his throat a little and continued, “No, I mean…kids…grow out of things. You can give them any old toy or something, and chances are, it’ll end up at the bottom of the toy box collecting dust. Or maybe they’ll hang on to it forever, but they’ll stop playing with it eventually. Kids can love something intensely for a few days, or a few months, or even for a few years, but they’ll grow up and love other things too, in different ways, and you can’t…” He sucked in a breath and worried his lip. “…You can’t just give me something that personal as if it were a toy to make me happy. Not at my age, anyway. And not with…the way we are,” he said, a wispy smile emerging in spite of himself.

For a long moment, Sherlock said nothing, though he seemed to be considering the words carefully. He lifted his chin. “You assume, then…that _I_ am a child?” he asked, with the earnest tone of inquiry.

“That’s not what I said,” John said, shaking his head in emphasis. “But it wasn’t—I mean, was it? It wasn’t what you—?” He broke himself off from asking what he realised he already knew the answer to—‘ _Was it what **you** wanted, Sherlock?’_

Sherlock had been jealous. Sherlock had outright told him he was consenting.

Yes, Sherlock wanted this.

And surely, someone like Sherlock, who hardly _wanted_ anything—not money, not food, not any of the comforting echoes of normalcy—surely, Sherlock would not want lightly, when he wanted.

And look what the deprivation of that want turned him into—a genuine ascetic, renouncing _all_ shades of want, even the want of warmth and colour, rather than simply hiding those wants behind the dark cloak of shadow he was accustomed to.

And all this just brought a different question to mind, as sudden and alarming as an iceberg spotted too late.

“ _Why?_ ” John breathed, heart pounding.

‘Why me, why _now_?’ he meant, but the words were lost in the jarring scrape of shock.

Sherlock opened his mouth, then closed it again, and took another step back. He turned in the direction of the atrium and John saw him try to pull the transparent coat tighter around himself, though it was already in place. “What does it matter,” Sherlock muttered. “I was mistaken.”

He abruptly left the corridor, leaving John to stare helplessly at his retreating back with the grim feeling that nothing had improved.

After all, Sherlock was in love with him.


	13. Violins and Living Rooms

They managed to avoid each other for two days. It meant that John had to suffer through another two nights on the floor of the elves’ rec room, but for the moment it was better than the alternative. He’d managed to make himself mildly useful in the workshop (or at least, the elves humoured him into thinking he’d been useful) as he quietly tried to absorb the fact that Sherlock ‘Sentiment is a Factor Found on the Losing Side’ Holmes was in love with him. The elves seemed to sense this inner dilemma and silently left him biscuits to make sure he didn’t starve while avoiding the dining hall and breakfast room.

John knew he had to get up the nerve eventually to talk to Sherlock again, which was his least favourite plan in the world but he couldn’t really see another option. Technically, his other options were to keep avoiding him or to pretend like none of this had happened, but even John realised that the viability of either of those plans was nil by this point. So, talking again it was.

But what to _say?_

‘Sherlock, I’m sorry you’re in love with me, but I had no _idea_ that that could even happen because you’ve always _told_ me that it couldn’t happen and I don’t know what we’re supposed to do about it’ didn’t sound the least bit helpful to anyone.

‘Sherlock, you’re my best friend and the most important person in my life and I don’t want to lose you but I just _don’t_ feel the same way about us’ was…closer to the mark, anyway, but still really unhelpful.

‘Sherlock, I think we’ve both let the kissing thing go to our heads,’ was probably the most accurate assessment of everything, but considering he had no clue about Sherlock’s prior experience with infatuation, he’d have to be careful with how he approached it.

Well, there was nothing for it now. Into battle.

He first checked the sorting room and was surprised to find that Sherlock wasn’t there. On asking an elf in the nearby gift-wrapping room, it seemed that Sherlock had had to stop the sorting in the D’s because he hadn’t gotten further in the List, which was, of course, in their room.

Which was just that little bit of extra incentive that John hadn’t known he needed until he’d heard it. He said his thanks to the elf, straightened his spine, and marched to the other most likely location Sherlock could be—the family living room.

Faint strains of violin music greeted him as he grew closer, and the warbling melody plucked at the guilty feeling resonating in his chest, stringing together notes of longing and contrition in a strange harmony of heartsickness. John's footsteps slowed of their own accord, and at the steps leading down into the living room, he paused and looked in.

It was clear Sherlock had taken over the room. A particular chair by the extinguished fireplace was coated in ice, and everything else seemed to be tinged in a thin layer of frost. Sherlock himself was facing the far wall, holding a new violin to his chin as he swept the bow across the strings. Beside him, there were a few ink-splattered sheets of paper resting on a rusty music stand.

John wasn’t aware he’d stopped breathing until Sherlock paused, set down the bow, and scribbled a few notes on the paper.

With his back still to the entrance, Sherlock said, “If you have something to declare, do hurry up about it, John. I’m busy.”

John clenched his fists, took a steadying breath, and stepped down into the room. “You don’t look busy,” he said, trying for lightness and falling flat.

Sherlock apparently didn’t deem the comment worth a response, nor did he bother turning around. He just brought the bow back to the strings and played, and it sounded like the cold, empty roar of the wind outside. John stepped nearer and glanced at the music notes scrawled over the paper, but it’d been so long since he’d played any sort of instrument that he had no hope of reading it now. He could only remember one other time when he’d seen Sherlock composing, and it’d been in the wake of The Woman. He swallowed, and felt guilty.

“ _Get over yourself, John_ ,” Sherlock hissed lowly, sawing at the strings. “It’s not as though you _consume_ my every waking thought!” he snapped, and the E string snapped with him, striking at his face. Sherlock recoiled, snarled “ _Damn!_ ” and threw the violin into the wall. He instantly put a hand over his eye.

John was at his side before he could even blink. “Sherlock, did it get your eye? Let me see,” he demanded, trying to pull Sherlock’s hands away from his face. At first Sherlock refused to budge, but eventually he let John tug his hands away.

“It didn’t get my eye, but I’ll _strangle_ the elf responsible for giving me defective strings,” he growled.

For the moment, John ignored him and carefully tilted Sherlock’s head to get a proper look at Sherlock’s eyes. The left one was wincing, both of them were watering a little, but nothing bleeding or red there. The same couldn’t be said for the pink welt blooming on Sherlock’s cheek or the small spot of blood just out of reach of his eyebrow.

“You can see out of both of them?” he asked, to be sure.

“Yes,” Sherlock huffed, briefly closing and opening each eye separately to test his vision in both.

“Well, it didn’t get your eye, but you are bleeding a bit here,” John said, pressing a thumb over the spot to encourage the minuscule bleeding to stop. “Nothing to worry about. Probably just stings a lot.”

“Yes,” Sherlock repeated, miffed.

At that moment, John realised he was tenderly holding Sherlock’s face and that he was staring straight into his watery, hurt eyes. He immediately let go and took a step back.

Perhaps too quickly, because Sherlock pulled a truly wretched sneer at him, clapped a hand over the injured side of his face, and bent to pick up the violin. “ _What_ have you come to bother me with, John? Haven’t you ruined my concentration enough for one day?” he snarled, tossing the violin into the ashes of the fireplace and storming over to the steps. “And can’t ANYONE in this godforsaken prison construct a _decent_ instrument that breaks properly?” he roared down the hallway. “It’s supposed to break TOWARDS THE PEG, YOU MORONS! And is having decent strings to begin with _that_ much to ask for?!”

John was taking heavy breaths and clenching his fists at his sides. “Sherlock,” he stated evenly, his reflexive angry smile flitting into place. “Don’t take it out on the elves.”

Sherlock whirled around to face him, and for a moment, John irrationally thought he was being advanced on by a personified avalanche. “Why shouldn’t I? _They’re_ the idiots who don’t know how to string a violin properly. It’s their _job_ to know.”

“You know what I mean, Sherlock,” John retorted.

Sherlock glared down at him, and John, for all the apprehension he’d felt beforehand, found himself perfectly at ease in the face of anger. He glared right back.

“Are you volunteering as scapegoat?” Sherlock rumbled ominously, and hell if that didn’t make a shiver run down John’s spine.

“Would it make you feel better?” John countered, raising both eyebrows in a challenge.

For a moment, Sherlock just stared at him with the unnerving gleam of rage and passion in his eyes, then he sharply turned his head to one side. “Get out,” he muttered, then walked to the icy armchair and threw himself into it.

John felt a confused disappointment, like having a lit firework fuse inexplicably fizzle out before ignition. “Sherlock, we can’t just leave it at this,” he said, trying to sound like the goddamn reasonable adult in the room. “It’s a week ‘til Christmas.”

“John, I am exhausted by you,” Sherlock said with a sigh. “Just get out,” he repeated, though it was softer, like a plea.

John, suddenly disarmed by the weak tone in his voice, did as he was bid and left, feeling strangely chastised. 

***

Mrs. Holmes was waiting for him in the elves’ rec room, calmly knitting away at a jumper and looking far too oversized for the tiny chair she was ensconced in. John was not happy to see her. He rubbed at his eyes and sighed.

“Good afternoon, John,” she said, not looking up from her needles. “We have missed you at breakfast for the past day or two.”

“Yeah, well,” John said, awkwardly taking his place on the floor in front of the tiny sofa adjacent to her chair. “It’s not because I’ve been trying to avoid your muffins, Mum.”

Her smile flickered. “And why would you? I make excellent muffins.” She finished off a row and then set her work down in her lap, sighing. “I grow weary of being your intermediary, John,” she stated bluntly.

John pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “I never asked you to be,” he retorted.

Silence filled the room, which John only broke with the shuffling sound of him trying to find a comfortable way to sit on the floor. He was getting so sick of the floor. He was missing his bed sharply with every ache in his bad shoulder—a bed that by this point he couldn’t see reuniting with anytime soon.

“Look, I think I’ve dealt with enough Holmes for one day,” he added testily. “If you’ve come to nag me into making up with him, you may as well save your breath. I tried that and he told me to get out.”

“Oh, did he?” she replied, sounding unconvinced. John glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and saw her pick up the needles again, resuming the motion of work. “That sounds unnecessarily petulant of him—characteristic, but unnecessary. He knows he needs to make up with you in order to fulfil the Obligation; I should think he would’ve acceded to the logic in it. What did you say to him?”

John opened his mouth to reply, then shut it, reviewing his meeting with Sherlock. Of all the possible things he’d thought of to say to Sherlock beforehand, he’d managed to say none of them. In fact, the only thing he’d said of any substance was a taunt trying to goad Sherlock into fighting with him. He groaned and buried his face in his hands.

“As I suspected,” Mrs. Holmes said.

“ _Yes_ , thank you, I wasn’t asking for a second opinion,” John snapped, lifting his head to glare at her.

He was surprised to find that the point of one of her knitting needles was between his eyes. He lurched backwards, staring wide-eyed at her.

“You mistake my meaning,” she said calmly, starting to slowly wave the point of the needle in a figure-eight pattern. “I was not opining on your behaviour. It was only to be expected. After all, you had no idea what to say to him, didn’t you?” she asked, still slowly twisting a consistent infinity symbol in the air with the needle.

John gave the needle a cautious look and edged away a bit more, glancing up at her face. She didn’t exactly _look_ threatening, rather the opposite actually, but he had no idea where this was going. He forced himself to consider her question and, after a moment’s thought, he shook his head in the affirmative.

“As I suspected,” she said again. “It was rather premature of you to attempt a reconciliation without knowing what you wanted to say.”

“What are you doing?” John asked at last, giving the swaying needle a wary look.

“Helping you figure out what you want to say,” she answered. “That is, if you trust me to help.”

John glanced up at her. She still shared the same eerie lack of colour in her eyes that Sherlock now had, and her bluish lips were just barely quirked in what he supposed was meant to resemble a reassuring smile. He swallowed. He’d never read any Russian fairy tales when he was young. He had no idea if her kind were like the piskies his grandmother had told him about—mischievous and unpredictable, capable of kindness or wrath depending on their mood and if you’d remembered to show them proper courtesy. In any case, personifications of winter never seemed to be in a good mood anyway.

But this was the same woman who’d proudly shown him Sherlock’s baby pictures and glowed with true human joy at the sight of the finished Christmas tree.

He took a deep breath and let it out. “Yes, of course I trust you,” he said softly.

Her smile stretched, enough to reach her eyes, but it was still not that reassuring. “That will make this much easier,” she commented. “Follow the movement of the needle.”

John was pretty certain he’d never _stopped_ watching the needle. “Why?” he asked, making his scepticism very audible.

“The movement of your eyes as you follow the pattern engages both hemispheres of your brain and gives you a point of focus. I’m hypnotising you, John.”

“What?” John asked flatly, briefly looking away from the needle.

“You said you trust me.”

“Yes…” he said slowly. “But _why_ are you trying to hypnotise me?”

“Focus,” she replied gently. Once he’d sighed and gone back to following the movement of the needle, she said, “John, balance is essential. In all things. My son has yet to learn this, but he has always been a creature of extremes.” She sighed. “Though even extremism has its place in the world, for it must counterweight opposite extremes in order to _create_ balance. However…you appear to have unbalanced yourself.”

“Too much yellow bile?” John teased tensely, still following the needle with his eyes.

“Shh,” she whispered. “We are attempting to build a bridge between your consciousness and your subconscious in order to help you find answers. Let your thoughts go quiet for a while and listen to the sound of my voice. You are in control of all you think and feel. You are at the helm, John. I am just the navigator.”

John sighed through his nose and continued watching the needle as it lazily looped in front of him. He knew hypnotism was just an altered state of consciousness; it wasn’t like the Svengali caricature of forcing a person to do another’s bidding—that was all show business. All the same, he wasn’t sure it would work on him. He’d never been hypnotised before, and he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted Mrs. Holmes in his subconscious. But…well, it really couldn’t hurt to _try_ , and if it didn’t work, then it didn’t work.

“Close your eyes,” Mrs. Holmes said, and he did so, still envisioning the swooping knitting needle in his mind’s eye.

“I want you to relax your shoulders, John, so that you feel comfortable. Good, excellent,” she soothed, as John carefully let his shoulders slump.

“If you want to, rest your arms on your legs, whatever makes you most comfortable. Wonderful, you’re doing very well,” she said. John rather doubted he was doing as well as she said he was, since it seemed like nothing was really happening yet.

“Breathe in deeply, hold it,” she instructed. “Now, slowly let it go. Good, good. One more time.

“Now, John, I want you to think of all the tension in your body floating away, slowly floating away, travelling up your legs…up your arms…up your neck…up through your head…up into the air, slowly…breathe in…breathe out…imagine all those worries breaking into tiny pieces and drifting away in the wind. You’re doing very well, take your time. Let the breeze take it away. Breathe in. Hold. Now breathe out, nice and slow, and let the last of it go. Very good, John.

“I want you to picture a place that makes you feel happy. Somewhere you feel safe and secure. Can you picture it, John?” she asked.

“Mm,” John replied, smiling, as a vision of Baker Street emerged effortlessly in his mind, and he conjured up a fire in the fireplace and the smell of a chemical spill coming from the kitchen.

“Wonderful, you’re doing very well, John,” Mummy Holmes said warmly. “I want you to settle in and just relax. Imagine you’re curled up with a blanket, just relaxing, warm and safe.”

John sighed lightly through his nose, feeling like he was in his chair at Baker Street, with the green throw draped over him and his feet warmed by the fire. He was staring across to the chair where Sherlock was smiling idly.

“Very good, John,” Mrs. Holmes said soothingly. “Would you mind telling me where you are?”

“Baker Street,” John answered with a sigh.

“Thank you, John,” she said. “I’ve never seen Baker Street before. Would you describe it for me?”

“Mm, ‘ss like a dream,” he answered. “Cosy, nice, all ours.”

“Who else is there, John?”

“Sssherlock, he’s there.” The Sherlock across from him smiled just a little wider, and John smiled back.

“Do you want him to be there, John?”

“’Course,” John replied immediately. “No fun without ‘im.”

“That sounds very nice,” she said.

“Mm,” John agreed.

“Now, John, I want you to remove something from Baker Street—anything you like, maybe something you don’t need. Could you tell me what it is?”

John considered it and removed the sack of toes from the fridge. “Bloody toes,” he said.

There was a pause, and then she said, “I understand. How do you feel about the toes being gone?”

“Fine,” John answered. Sherlock didn’t look especially pleased, but he was soon back to smiling at John a moment later.

“Very good, John. Now, I would like you to remove something else from Baker Street—anything you like, but this time something you’re fond of.”

John thought about it and removed the bison skull. He’d sort of grown fond of it over time, and its absence from the wall looked a little sad.

“Could you tell me what you removed this time, John?”

“Skull.”

There was another pause, and she said, “I understand. How do you feel about the skull being gone?”

“Bit sad,” he answered.

“Could you imagine replacing the skull with something else? Maybe just a picture of the skull?” she asked.

He pictured a painting of the skull in place of where the skull had been. It looked about right. “Mm,” he answered her.

“Very good, John, you’re doing a wonderful job,” she praised. “How do you feel about the picture of the skull?”

“Fine,” he replied. Sherlock didn’t seem to notice the change in skulls; he just continued to smile idly.

“Now, John, I’m going to ask you to do something which might be hard for you to do, but I’d like for you to try. Are you willing to try?” she asked carefully.

John considered, really having no idea what she could ask, and said, “Maybe.”

“Thank you,” she said. “John, I’d like you to remove Sherlock from Baker Street.”

“No,” John said immediately, feeling like a cold breeze had swept into the room. Sherlock had stopped smiling, looking panicked.

“I understand that it is difficult,” she said soothingly. “You don’t have to remove him if you don’t want to.”

John felt himself relax, the room warming up again, and Sherlock started smiling again.

“Can you tell me how the thought of removing Sherlock made you feel?” Mrs. Holmes asked.

“Scared.”

“I see. How does having him there make you feel?”

“Happy.”

“I thought Baker Street made you happy, John,” she said calmly. “Could you replace Sherlock with someone else for a short time? Maybe Sherlock is out getting groceries.”

“He doesn’t get them,” John answered.

He heard her sigh. “I understand perfectly, John. Maybe Sherlock is out solving crimes instead, and you have a friend over. Can you picture that for me?”

He tried it—imagined that Sherlock left a sticky note on the fridge saying not to wait up, and on the sofa was Mike Stamford, twiddling his thumbs. “Mm,” he hummed disinterestedly.

“Thank you, John, you’ve been doing an excellent job,” said Mummy Holmes. “How do you feel about having your friend over?”

“Bored.” Quite frankly, Mike looked a bit bored too. They didn’t really _do_ ‘hang out at Baker Street’ together.

“You do not feel happy?”

“Not…really.”

“Okay, I understand. Send your friend home for now, but imagine that Sherlock is late coming home. Perhaps he is held up in traffic. Can you picture that for me, John?”

John stared at the empty chair. “Mm,” he muttered.

“Very good, John. How do you feel now in Baker Street?”

John gazed around the flat, cluttered with Sherlock’s mess. “Empty.”

“I understand,” she answered. “You’ve done very well, John. Bring Sherlock home.”

The empty chair was occupied again, and he smiled. Sunlight was filtering through the windows and setting light to the dust curling through the air, tinging the edges of Sherlock’s hair in a golden-hued brown. He felt warm, content, and like he never wanted to live in another living room again.

“Now, John, I want you to hang on to your happy feeling, and I want you to remember Sherlock in Baker Street. Hold on tightly to them, and picture yourself walking up a set of stairs, one by one, and feel yourself come back at your own pace. Feel the weight come back into your arms and legs, slowly and steadily. Step by step, pace by pace. And…there. Open your eyes, John.”

John opened his eyes and stretched, popping a few kinks in his back and inhaling deeply. He looked up at Mrs. Holmes, who was smiling warmly, her cheeks pink.

“Now do you know what to say?” she asked, and John remembered that feeling of perfect happiness, with Sherlock swirling in the centre of that vision.

His heart tripped over itself. “ _Oh god no_ ,” he groaned, a full-blown blush burning down to his neck as he buried his face in his hands. “Oh Christ _no_ , this is not fucking happening.”

She chuckled in that airy way of laughing that she had. “You truly are a stubborn one, John Watson.”

John refused to bring his face out of his hands. “This seriously can’t be happening,” he muttered, shaking his head in emphasis.

For a moment, there was silence, followed by Mrs. Holmes softly calling, “Leila, some tea might be in order, if you’d be so kind.” The clicking of her needles resumed as John tried to come to grips with the fact that Sherlock flooded over _everything_ in his damn mind and he’d just been swimming in it as obliviously as a fish.

“Is it really such a cause for alarm?” Mummy Holmes asked gently, still clicking away. “You already know how he feels about you.”

John made a frustrated noise and said, “Yes. Yes it is.” He brought his face out of his hands at last. “I did _not_ sign up for this when I offered to help him with ‘family errands’ over the holidays.” He suddenly noticed an elf standing next to his elbow and holding out a steaming cup of tea, which he took automatically. “Thank you,” he told her, as she moved to hand over the other cup to Mrs. Holmes.

“ _Spasibo_ , Leila,” Mummy Holmes said. “And tell the others not to crowd in the hallway. They have work they should be attending to.”

They sipped tea.

“Do you have any idea how _inconvenient_ it is?” John said, after a long silent minute. “Do you have any idea—we were _fine_ before, we were perfectly fine, it was all straightforward and—and I’m not even _attracted_ to him, how the hell is this even supposed to work?” He took an angry gulp of tea, instantly regretting it as it burned his tongue.

Mummy Holmes simply raised an eyebrow. “You make it sound as though attraction has to come before love,” she stated.

“Because it _does_ ,” he said.

She burst out laughing, and John was briefly startled at the sound of it—a full, human belly laugh, with an alto pitch—and at the sight of her in the strawberry-blonde hair and pink lips she’d had at the tree-lighting.

“ _Bozhe moy_ ,” she breathed, once she’d caught her breath, still smiling in sheer mirth. “You honestly believe that!”

“Because that’s usually what happens!” John protested, a bit offended. “That’s how it’s always been for _me_ , anyway, and I’m not some babe in the woods, ta very much.”

This seemed to just set her off again. “What pitiful romances you must have had!” she commented between giggles.

“Oi!” John barked, now more than offended, partly because she was sort of right when he thought about his string of exes.

“Oh, forgive me, John,” she said, starting to calm down a bit as she rubbed away moisture from her eyes. “It just explains so much of human behaviour, if that’s how most of you view the subject. I’ve always _puzzled_ over some of the inconsistencies—it makes much more sense now.”

“So I’ll take it that’s not how it worked for you and Mr. Holmes,” John said dryly, sipping carefully at the tea.

“You guess correctly,” she replied with a smile. “As I recall, Patrick and I did not have intimate relations until six months after our marriage.”

John blinked, wondering if he’d heard correctly. He realised he was still holding the teacup to his mouth and slowly lowered it. “Six months,” he echoed.

“Mm,” she hummed through her tea.

“Six months _after_ you were married?” he asked, because this had to be confirmed.

“Indeed,” she affirmed with a small nod.

“And how long did you know each other before you were married?” he asked, somewhat dreading the answer.

“Three days.”

“Three _DAYS?_ ” John accidentally shouted.

“Everyone is always so surprised when I say that,” she said, her face briefly pulling into a puzzled frown.

“You—You met a man in the woods somewhere, and three days later, you decided to marry him.”

She lifted her chin slightly, proud. “We Holmeses are swift and accurate judges of character,” she declared. “Patrick and I were enormously fond of each other from the beginning, and we did not see any point in waiting. His family were a proper sort, and with his career goals, we agreed that it was better to marry to avoid scandal.”

“But you didn’t…you didn’t even…six _months_?” John said, trying to wrap his mind around the enigma of the Holmes marriage.

She shrugged. “That was not our primary interest in each other. We simply understood one another.”

John took a deep breath and let it out, then drained the rest of his tea. He stared down at the dregs and smiled a little. “It sounds like a fairy tale,” he said after a moment, looking back to her.

She raised an eyebrow. The colour in her skin and hair was starting to fade a little.

“I mean, you meet a charming man in the woods one day—and you were a snow spirit, right? That makes it even better—and three days later, you’re so…purely taken with each other you decide to join the rest of humanity and marry him and not even think about sex until months later, like it’s just an afterthought. Then you have a couple of kids, watch them grow up to be frankly amazing people, and you still sound like you love your husband as much as the day you met him, Mum. It’s hard to believe,” he said, with half a laugh. Then he looked down and drummed his fingers against the cup in his hands, a small smile flitting across his mouth as an image of Sherlock in his chair crossed his mind. “But I can believe it.”

“A fairy tale, you think? …I suppose it is,” she said softly, which caused John to look back to her. Her hair had reverted in full back to its white shade, and she appeared to be looking into a far distance. “Yes, I suppose we all live in fairy tales.”

He smiled cautiously at her, wondering where her mind was. “Well, I would think most people could only hope for a happy ending like yours, Mum.”

Her eyes flicked into focus and fixed on his. “You believe I have a happy ever after, John?” she said, with neither warmth nor chill. “The man I loved and sacrificed my immortality for died from the disappointment of an unfulfilled dream, and the only place I feel at home anymore is a secluded wasteland where his memory lives strongest, and where I see one of my sons once a year. A fairy tale, yes—I live in a fairy tale, but so do we all. Fairy tales rarely end happily; ‘happy ever afters’ are an invention of the twentieth century.”

In a matter of seconds, John had gone from charmed to disastrously mortified. He hadn’t meant to reopen old wounds, let alone those of his hostess.

“I’m—I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”

She sighed, reaching over and placing a hand on his shoulder. After a pause, she said, “John, pay no attention to the sorrows of an old widow. You were right—I still love him as much as the day I married him, if not more so now.” She offered him the semblance of a smile. “More importantly, John, there are no happy endings because nothing ever ends.[19] The stories go on, and it will do us both good to remember that.”

He tentatively smiled back at her, and she drew back and picked up her sewing needles once again. “As for your concerns,” she said a moment later. “Just give yourself time. It may appear to you that attraction is deterministic and predictable, but it is by nature chaotic.” [20] 

***

However, just because John now knew what he should say to Sherlock, that didn’t necessarily mean that he _wanted_ to. Not yet anyway. Not when everything was still so…new.

But he didn’t really have a choice in waiting much longer. He and Sherlock _needed_ to reconcile in order for the Christmas delivery to actually happen this year, and he couldn’t just wait until he felt better about it before going in. Logically, he knew this.

Even so, the two elves pulling at his hands as he slugged down the hallway helped stop him from running in the opposite direction. He glanced down at the one that was chattering a steady stream of encouragement at him and thought he recognised her.

“It’s Chestnut, isn’t it?” he asked.

She blushed the colour of cherries. “Yes, that’s me, John Watson!”

He looked to the other one, which happened to be Tomboy Elf from a day or two ago. “And what’s your name? I didn’t catch it before.”

“Eld,” she replied.

“Okay then,” he said. He looked across the atrium towards the sound of a violin playing and planted his feet into the floor, trying to swallow down the nervous flutters in his stomach. The elves tugged.

“Aw, c’mon, ya big baby,” said Eld, pulling mightily.

“It’ll be okay, John Watson! Master Sherlock will be happy to hear you love him!” said Chestnut, tugging much more gently and with a bright smile.

“ _Could you keep it down?_ ” John hissed at them, turning an incandescent red and taking a few reluctant steps forward. They stumbled their way past the tree. “I’m…I’m really not good at this—this sort of thing.”

“What’s to know?” said Eld. “Just go in and tell ‘im.”

“You know, I heard Tomtin saying there’s a shortage of toy-painters,” John said weakly. “Maybe I should—”

“Tomtin’s just a lazy coot,” Eld cut him off. “He’s a-Sawyerin’ ya, John Watson, pay ‘im no mind.” She suddenly released his hand, went behind him, and shoved.

He staggered into the family wing, still clinging to Chestnut’s tiny hand. Chestnut tugged a bit downwards, indicating he should bend down to eye-level. After sending a wary glance in the direction of the living room, he did so.

“It’s okay, John Watson, I know the absolute best thing to say to make everything go perfectly. It’s my very best secret,” she whispered. He sent her a desperate look, and she beckoned him to turn his ear toward her. He did so, and she leant forward and said, _sotto voce_ , “Tell him he’s beautiful.”

“…Thanks,” he whispered, not feeling helped at all.

She gave him a cheery thumbs-up and retreated to where Eld was standing with her arms crossed in the entryway. Eld clearly had no intentions of moving until John had successfully dragged himself into the living room. John sighed, swallowed heavily, and stood up, turning swiftly and marching over. It might be easier to just get it all over with quickly.

He slipped and nearly fell on the ice coating the stairs if not for the rickety handrail that he’d seized on losing traction.

Sherlock played on, seemingly oblivious.

John carefully made his way down the rest of the steps then stood and fell into parade rest, waiting awkwardly to be acknowledged. He took a few steps forward and stood at rest again, looking around at the fresh coating of ice on everything and glancing at Sherlock’s back, where the impression of his shoulder blades could be seen moving through the bone-coloured shirt he wore underneath the transparent coat.

John cleared his throat and said, “Another new violin, then?”

The music stopped. Sherlock set the bow down on the stand, picked up a pen, and wrote a few more notes on the paper.

“Yes,” he replied, then picked up the bow again, playing back through the notes John had heard coming in.

“Ah,” John said faintly, looking away again. He could barely hear the music over the sound of his own heart pounding. He licked his lips. “So that makes it the third one.”

Sherlock didn’t reply; he just played on. John was suddenly hit with the realisation that Sherlock probably knew everything already. He probably knew everything already and was drawing this out as long as possible just to be a pain in the arse. The smug insensitive git. He glared at the back of his snowy head. “So. Heard anything interesting lately?” John said, annoyed.

Sherlock paused, but he didn’t lift the bow from the strings. “If you’re referring to your own thoughts, John, then no, I have not heard them since our last meeting,” he said at last. He softly resumed playing.

“No?” John said, surprised. “You haven’t—you stopped hearing my thoughts?”

“I heard enough of your pity,” Sherlock retorted. “I no longer wished to hear it.”

John gawked and felt a simultaneous mix of relief and dismay. “I—you—you can turn it off?” he asked.

“Not precisely,” Sherlock said. He sighed and set the bow down, turning around at last. The lash on his face had since turned a dark, cold purple. “Lately I’ve found that my ability to read into others’ thoughts behaves in a way similar to a radio. Unmonitored, the thoughts all come in at once and resemble static chatter, but I can tune into different frequencies if I focus on them individually. Yours simply has the strongest signal because of your physical proximity to me and our familiarity.” He crossed his arms and shrugged stiffly, still holding on to the violin’s neck with one hand. “I’ve focused on a different frequency.”

John blinked and said, “Whose?” before he could think better of it.

Sherlock’s gaze flickered towards the half-filled music sheets, and he idly tapped the body of the violin against his torso. “It’s not important,” he replied.

John was seized by a violent and completely unexpected surge of jealousy. Sherlock was composing. If he hadn’t been focusing on John when he was composing, there was only one other known person he’d ever composed for. John clenched his jaw and flexed out the tremor in his hand.

“Okay,” John said gruffly, then cleared his throat. He took a deep breath and reminded himself to focus on what he came for. It was now or never.

_I’m in love with you, you fucking git, and if you’re in love with ME why the hell are you thinking of HER?_

He took another deep breath and let it out.

“Look, um…” he began. He remembered Chestnut’s advice. He looked at Sherlock’s face, which truth be told looked more like a battle-worn frost-giant’s than what he was used to, with the heavy dark circles under his eyes, the maroon line running across his gaunt cheek, the blackish-blue lips, and the frost-chipped eyebrows surmounted over his frigid eyes. Honestly, he couldn’t find anything beautiful about being stared down by an ice demon.

“Um, that is…” he began again. He put his hands behind his back and briefly looked down, then back up. “That is, I— _we_ , yeah, we should, um, we should really…” Christ, he was bad at this. He was fucking terrible at this. He gulped. “I think we should get back together,” he blurted.

Sherlock’s eyebrows furrowed.

Oh god, that didn’t even make sense. They were never ‘together’ to begin with! “For the kids,” he added desperately, which Christ help him made even _less_ sense. He cleared his throat. “What I _mean_ is, we should be working together again, for the sake of the kids at Christmas.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes, arms still crossed, and huffed. “Yes, I suppose,” he agreed. He turned his gaze away. “I promise not to…press my interest, if you’re concerned,” he added stiffly.

John felt a guilty pang and he took a step forward, raising a hand cautiously. “No, it’s—” he started, inexplicably paralysed with fear. God, now was _not_ the time to remember Sherlock on his knees and staring up at him with burning eyes. Would Sherlock be expecting that to happen if he told him now? Jesus Christ, he’d only figured out he was in love with the man an hour ago; he wasn’t ready to bed him yet. _Just tell him_ , he berated himself. “Sherlock, I don’t want to lose you,” he said quietly.

Sherlock looked sharply back at him. His eyes narrowed and his gaze flickered over John’s face, clearly trying to interpret the earnestness in John’s expression. After a moment, he declared, “That isn’t very kind of you,” then snatched up the paper on the music stand and dropped the violin carelessly on the floor. He swept past a bewildered John and said, in a tone of exasperated resignation, “Come on, then.”

John was still trying to process what had just happened. He slipped and stumbled after Sherlock, who was already storming down the hallway. “Sherlock—Sherlock, wait,” he called. “I don’t think you understand—”

“I _understand_ , John,” Sherlock retorted over his shoulder. “I imagine you think love is a mystery to me, but I _do_ understand the chemistry and rudimentary basics.”

“What?” John asked desperately, heart thumping. So Sherlock understood after all? Then why the hell was he acting like this?

They’d reached the doorway, and Sherlock spun about-face and bent down to eye-level so suddenly John startled backwards.

Sherlock didn’t even blink. He just glared pointedly into John’s eyes, his face mere inches away from John’s own, and said coldly, “You want to remain friends. I understand. But in my experience a clean break is a kinder gesture than the alternative.” He pressed his mouth into a thin line and exhaled loudly through his nose, and for a moment, John saw an ash-grey colour return to his eyes. “Distance is the kindest thing I can offer to you now, John. Anything closer and I will _not_ be kind.” He blinked once, twice, and the glimmer of colour faded away. “I expect you to do the same.”

“Sherlock, no—” John said, reaching a hand toward his face. It didn’t make contact—Sherlock’s hand had seized his wrist and pulled it away before it had a chance.

“ _Don’t_ ,” Sherlock hissed, glowering ominously. “ _ **Don’t** pity me_.”

And there it was—the fire he’d seen in Sherlock’s eyes before—raging, infernal, captivating in its sheer force of power, and John felt himself go breathless.

Those same eyes glinted downwards to John’s parted lips and flashed back up. “I promised I would not press my interest on you,” he growled, and suddenly his blue lips twisted in a cruel smirk. “So I will leave you to open the door.”

John saw the challenge in his words, in his bitterly amused expression, which all spelled out: _I dare you to kiss me, John. I dare you to kiss the man you’ve hurt._ He swallowed, heart surging with cowed guilt and the truly visceral pull he felt to this man, and he gasped for breath as he pushed his mouth into Sherlock’s, for one glorious second.

Sherlock jerked away the moment their lips made contact, and he stalked into the room, leaving John to stand in the doorway feeling empty-armed. Sherlock immediately went to his chair by the fire, picked up The List, and started work anew.

John absently stretched an arm across the doorway and placed a hand on the rune-scribed wood where Sherlock had been standing five seconds ago. He took a deep, shaky breath. That had not gone at all how he’d expected. He looked to the fire, at the back of Sherlock’s head, and he felt a sickening throb in his chest just on _looking_ at him.

Holy hell. This was his life now. This was what life felt like when you were in love with Sherlock Holmes. It felt like having a fucking angina attack. _Christ._ And he hadn’t even told him. He hadn’t _bloody_ told him!

“Sherlock,” he rasped, taking a few unstable steps into the room. “Sherlock, _listen_.”

Sherlock was not listening. Sherlock was deep in a golden-eyed trance, hatching lines and checks across names.

“ _Sherlock_ ,” John said, louder. He knew Sherlock could hear him—he’d heard him before when he was like this. Or maybe that was because John’s mind had been constantly running in the background of Sherlock’s mind, and _that_ was how he’d been heard before. Maybe. He couldn’t know how Sherlock’s mind worked—especially not _now_ , not with…everything.

He stood beside Sherlock’s chair, his hand hovering over Sherlock’s shoulder, debating the wisdom of getting his attention again.

‘Anything closer and I will _not_ be kind,’ he’d said.

He was trying to be kind. In the midst of all that rawness and hurt, Sherlock was _trying_ to be kind. Something swam up in John’s mind, something he felt could’ve been in a dream but at the same time was so vivid and real he couldn’t dismiss it: Sherlock’s arm around him, and him saying softly, “I do try for you, John. I’ve never tried for anyone else.”

John felt light-headed at the memory; at the sight before him of this viciously proud man sitting up perfectly straight, working stoically onward; this man who tried for him; this man who was weak in front of him—and he drew his hand away from where it threatened to touch his shoulder, overwhelmed. They were raw and aching, together. It was a balance so delicate he feared they would break in that second if they touched again, and shatter beyond repair.

Instead, he brought his mouth close to Sherlock’s ear and whispered, his eyes closed, “I love you, you know” and drew away, retreating to the bathroom. He shut the door and tried to remember how to breathe.

God help him, they’d figure out how to do this right someday. Someday, but not today. Today was for peace, however tremulous, and a long-overdue shave. He was yearning for something smooth.

 

* * *

[19] With apologies to Peter S. Beagle, the credit for this line comes from _The Last Unicorn_

[20] Mummy Holmes is making a maths joke here, based on Chaos Theory. You don’t actually have to get the joke to get the sentence, but for the curious, the full explanation lies [in this link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory). For the brief version and for the mathematically challenged (like myself), the main thing you need to know about Chaos Theory can be summarized as: “When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.” Another way of explaining it is in terms of rounding decimals: if you have a number, such as Pi (3.14157…), how you choose to round it will affect your end calculation, and you’ll find different results among different people all using Pi in their calculations depending on how they choose to round the number—in other words, you can all start at approximately the same point in the past, but the variations that occur will result in different conclusions in the future. Bit like the Butterfly Effect. Chaotic behaviour is also observed in natural systems such as the weather and tends to be associated with fractal geometry, hence it is probably one of Mummy Holmes’s favourite things to study in mathematics.


	14. Snowmelt and Unbaked Dough

If ever there was a one-sided Cold War, this was it. On the one side was John, desperately trying to find the right moment to say the right words to Sherlock, and on the other side was Sherlock going out of his way to avoid interacting with John by absorbing himself night and day in List-checking and gift-sorting. It wasn’t as though Sherlock was particularly _uncivil_ to John; whenever necessity dictated they interact, he was frigidly decent. But he was also repeatedly shaking off John’s admittedly pitiful attempts to start a conversation by insisting on the urgency of the work that needed to be done—which wasn’t a lie, and it wasn’t an excuse John could feel justified tearing down. On any other occasion, John could almost appreciate how preternaturally respectful Sherlock was being (by Sherlockian standards); in the past two days, he’d only snapped at John once to stop harassing him.

The same couldn’t quite be said for Mrs. Holmes and the elves, who unilaterally seemed disappointed each passing day they awoke to find subdued gloom still hanging over the North Pole and Sherlock still in his Ice Queen persona. They’d by turn cluck chidingly at John when they saw him or not-so-subtly urge him to “just get on with it,” and at one point John was even handed a petition signed by everyone begging him “to hereby forthwith presently immediately confess the revelation of one Dr. John Watson’s feelings of romantic attachment in relation to one Master Sherlock Holmes, Gift-Giver in the Era of the Seventh Swimming Swan, presently, immediately, forthwith, forever and ever after, the end.”

To which John usually replied that he was trying, damn it. About the only time Sherlock wasn’t engaged with Obligation duties was when John found him composing for _her_ , and if that fact alone didn’t drive him up the wall enough to put him out of any mood to engage in a meaningful conversation, Sherlock’s stubborn reticence to even admit for whom he was composing was the final nail in the coffin. It didn’t help that the music sounded sad. And beautiful. And like a gift of effort.

On the third morning, John was relieved to wake up alone without Sherlock working in front of the fire, as he had been the past two mornings. He could have some time to himself for once. No Mummy Holmes or elves nagging at him to confess. No Sherlock aggressively giving him the cold shoulder. Since the room was kiss-locked, there wasn’t much of a chance of anyone intruding on him.

A long bath was in order.

He sleepily dragged himself out of bed and into the bath, starting the water running and searching for a match to light the coals underneath. On locating one out by the fireplace, he returned, tossed the lit match into the pit, and waited for the tub to fill.

He turned off the tap and stepped into the warming water, settling with a sigh into the basin and resting his head against the rim, his eyes closed. He could feel the heat from the coals leaking up from the bottom against the backs of his legs.

John was tired of thinking about Sherlock. Just the thought of his name made his heart lurch. It was exhausting.

‘ _I’m exhausted by you, John_ ,’ Sherlock had said. Is this what he’d meant when he’d said that? If so, John couldn’t blame him.

John sighed, dunked his head under the water, came back up, wiped water out of his eyes, and reached for the shampoo. He absently hummed the tune of a lullaby his grandmother had used to sing to him—he didn’t know the words anymore, but he still remembered the melody, and something about fairies and angels. Dunking his hair back under, he ran his fingers through his scalp to get the suds out, then came back up. The water was thoroughly warm now. He reached for the bar soap and started scrubbing at his arms.

After struggling with his back and on reaching his stomach, John paused. It had been awhile since he’d rubbed one out. With all things considered, it might be a good idea to…test the waters. So to speak.

He glanced toward the bathroom door self-consciously. If there was ever a good time for him to find a nice uninterrupted wank session at the North Pole, now was the time. He had the Master Suite to himself. Sherlock was voluntarily staying out of his thoughts. He had a sufficiently huge heated bath to indulge in. He was (in)conveniently in love with a man he wasn’t entirely sure he was attracted to. Nearly ideal conditions, really. It’d be almost a shame _not_ to.

John ran the bar soap slowly over his legs, savouring the smooth glide across his skin. Finishing up there, he set the soap aside and let his hands sink under the water, leaning against the backrest with his eyes closed, lightly running his fingertips up his thighs and across his stomach, up towards his neck, briefly massaging at his scalp before drawing his hands back down. He lightly rubbed at his cock with one hand, unhurried.

He’d liked kissing Sherlock, once he’d gotten used to it. He knew that at least, so he tried focusing on that magnificent snog they’d had before everything had gone pear-shaped. Sherlock had been so…gentle, so astonishingly and uncharacteristically gentle. For a moment, John felt the ghost of a tingle on his bottom lip, where he’d been bitten a week ago, and he touched his tongue to it, surprised at the tantalising shock it evoked. His cock twitched a little in response.

He glanced down briefly, huffed a resigned “Okay then,” and rested his head back. Kissing, sure. Match him up with a good kisser and he’d probably get turned on no matter whom it was. But _Sherlock_ —amazing, incredible, brilliant Sherlock. There was the puzzle.

Or perhaps the puzzle was more about how it’d _become_ such a puzzle: the moment he’d killed the cabbie for Sherlock, John had about been ready to spend the rest of his life with the man. It had just been… _right_. He’d known it even then, but he hadn’t had a word for it yet. All he’d known at the time was that he sure as hell couldn’t wait to move in.

He tightened his grip on his cock a bit more but didn’t vary the pace—not just yet. He had the whole place to himself, more than enough time. John breathed deeply and smiled, letting his heart flutter a little.

Yeah, all right, he loved Sherlock. It wasn’t news. When they weren’t pissing each other off, they were recklessly happy together. He remembered with a grin the sound of Sherlock laughing as they raced reindeer around the Pole, and he chuckled aloud recalling their latest visit to Buckingham Palace.

He paused the memory for a moment, rewound the part where Sherlock had nearly lost his sheet and flashed quite a bit of skin. Did that do anything for him? He considered the expanse of Sherlock’s back, and…no, not really. If anything, he couldn’t think of that moment as anything but enormously ridiculous and more than a little funny.

John sighed, a bit annoyed, and stubbornly jerked a bit faster at his cock, using his other hand to fondle his balls a bit. This would really be a lot easier if he was in love with someone he was attracted to.

The irony was not lost on him. He’d never have guessed that _Sherlock_ would be the first of them embracing the possibility of a sexual relationship together, staring at him with such sharp, fiery passion that—“ _Oh_ ,” John gasped, eyes flying open as he felt a frisson of arousal jolt through him. He gripped his cock, still for a moment, then pulled up, squeezing with a bit of a twist at the head as he concentrated on Sherlock staring up at him from his knees. “ _Mm_ —oh,” he said weakly, closing his eyes at the sheer shudder of bliss.

Oh, it _had_ been a long time.

He pumped faster with one hand and dug the nails of the other into a thigh, listening to his own rapidly shortening breaths and the small splashes of water colliding against the sides of the basin. He bit at his bottom lip and moaned at the contact, remembering Sherlock’s tongue and lips caressing over it intricately, as if to study every thin crease and taste the copper left there, how it’d lit electric in flashes of pain and pleasure.

He imagined it now—Sherlock on his knees, gripping John’s waist, breathing warmly at his open navel—he imagined Sherlock leaning forward, pressing his open mouth to the skin there, wetly kissing into his bellybutton, staring straight up, sucking, drifting downward…

“Oh, fuck,” John gasped, his legs crashing open into the sides of the tub with a loud _ka-thunk_ as he swept his spare hand down an inner thigh to cradle his tightening balls while his other hand pumped furiously, splashing. “ _Shit-fuck-Sherlock!_ ” he panted, groaning loudly.

He pictured burying his fingers into those gorgeous, lush curls—Sherlock’s mouth opening around his cock, sucking him down, tongue flicking, curling—he was staring up, straight into John’s eyes, two scorching stars of intelligence and desire—whispering _I dare you_ —starting to bob up and down, sucking, licking— _Sex, John_.

He came with a hoarse yell, shaking and panting as he rode out three strong pulses, one of his feet somehow knocking the shampoo bottle into the water.

Quivering in the aftershocks, John caught his breath.

Christ that’d been nice.

…All right then. So a Sherlock fantasy had happened. And it’d been rather effective, too, considering. So the idea of sex with Sherlock wasn’t out of the question. And there was at least something John found attractive about him. That was definitely something to think about.

He unplugged the drain and stepped somewhat unsteadily out of the tub, reaching for a towel. He padded to the mirror over the sink, examined the pink contented look on his face, grinned, and decided that a thorough shave was in order. After all, sooner or later he’d be kissing a certain Father Christmas when he came back from sorting.

John progressed through the rest of his morning routine with ease and was buttoning up a shirt in the bedroom, eyeing a jumper folded on a shelf in the wardrobe that he was fairly certain wasn’t his. It was a dark bluish-purple colour—‘indigo,’ Sherlock would’ve called it—and it seemed to have a white snowflake pattern knit along the top. He was reasonably sure it had not been there before. Was it a leftover jumper belonging to Sherlock’s dad? A gift from Mrs. Holmes? From Sherlock?

He pulled it off the shelf and ran his thumb over the wool, wondering if it would be rude to try it on if he didn’t know if it was intended for him. He dithered. Well…what the hell, it was only for a second.

It fit him perfectly—so it probably hadn’t belonged to Sherlock’s dad. Now to figure out where it had come from… He smiled, hopeful it’d come from Sherlock, as a sign of truce maybe, a good omen.

The door to the bathroom slammed open.

John nearly jumped a mile out of his skin and spun around.

Sherlock. Standing there. In a towel. Red all over and with a glistening sheen of sweat on his skin.

They stared at each other in horror.

“Why are you still here?!” Sherlock yelped, retreating back a step into the bathroom.

“WHERE THE _HELL_ DID YOU COME FROM?” John said, also retreating back a step and running into the wardrobe.

“The—erm—the sauna,” Sherlock mumbled, gesturing vaguely behind him.

“The—The saun… _ssssshit_ ,” John hissed, clapping a hand over his mouth and turning to the side sharply, reddening. He sure as hell had not been quiet in the bath.

“You forgot we had a sauna,” Sherlock said weakly, maintaining a death hold on his towel.

Fuck, he bloody well had. He hadn’t had _time_ to remember they had a sauna. Mortified beyond belief, he glared daggers at Sherlock. “Why the bloody hell were you in the sauna?”

“Well, don’t blame _me_ ,” Sherlock huffed. “You typically only take twenty minutes to finish the rest of your routine, and I thought you’d have left by now.”

“No, why were you in there _in the first place?_ ” John asked, still flushed with embarrassment and telling himself to look at Sherlock’s _face_ and at his face _only_.

“I’m usually in there when you’re asleep,” Sherlock said. “It’s rather…calming.”

They managed to stare at each other while simultaneously avoiding each other’s eyes.

“Um,” Sherlock said quietly, the fingers of one hand tapping nervously on the doorframe. “May I come in? For…clothes.”

John mutely nodded and made a half-hearted ‘come on in’ gesture. Sherlock shuffled to his own wardrobe and pulled out his coat—black again, they both noted with a surprised noise—and hastily put it on like a makeshift housecoat, buttoning several buttons in place before he cautiously turned around to face John again.

 _Okay, no_ , John thought to himself with a swallow, involuntarily fixating on the pink skin gaping at Sherlock’s neck and his bare legs. _Now he just looks like a posh flasher. This does not help_.

Sherlock shoved his hands in his pockets, equally red-faced, and stared at the floor.

“S-So I take it…” John started, gulping back the rest of his question. Instead, he thought the rest at him: _…you heard me?_

Sherlock looked back up at him, pressed his mouth into a line, and nodded. Then looked away.

John also looked away and scratched the back of his neck, exhaling in defeat. _How much?_ he added, just to be sure.

“Um, I heard you call my name and then the rest sort of…followed,” Sherlock said awkwardly, waving a hand in a sort of ‘there it went’ gesture. “I got curious.”

Right. John was ready to die now. Requited unresolved sexual tension or not, the ‘I accidentally caught you wanking to me and we’re not in a relationship’ conversation was something no pure-blooded British person should ever be subjected to.

Sherlock sighed deeply, shoving his hands back into his pockets, and looked straight at John. “John, I’m about to say something I’ve never said to anyone.”

“Er, I know—”

“I’m confused,” Sherlock admitted, sending him a pleading look.

“Um…yes. Yeah, I imagine you would be,” John replied sheepishly, still rubbing the back of his neck.

“Not that I’m not—I mean, I _am_ —ah, _flattered_ , but honestly, what—”

“I’ve been…figuring things out,” John interrupted. “Um, good things. About…us.”

“Oh,” said Sherlock, staring wide-eyed at him. “All right,” he added, an involuntary smile flitting in place before he sucked his lips behind his teeth and looked away again.

“So—” they said at the same time. Sherlock quickly waved at him to go first.

“Sssooo,” John said, suddenly having no idea where this conversation should go. “You’re looking better,” he commented weakly, offering a timid smile.

“I suppose,” Sherlock mumbled, looking up to the ceiling and dragging a hand through his de-icicled curls.

For a moment, John was captivated by the long, white expanse of his throat, but then he caught sight of what were definitely teeth marks imprinted in the skin just above Sherlock’s wrist as Sherlock finger-combed through his hair, and John’s brain promptly derailed into _Oh, fuck_. Sherlock had been biting his own arm to keep quiet in the sauna. Oh Jesus _fuck_. His knees went weak.

Sherlock apparently heard him deduce that, because he abruptly brought his arm down, shoved it in a coat pocket, and blushed brighter than Rudolph’s nose.

They stared at each other from across the room, and John involuntarily gulped and licked his lips, shivering as he saw Sherlock mimic him a second later.

“I think,” John squeaked, embarrassed at how high his voice sounded. “I think I should…get breakfast and, erm, let you change.”

Sherlock blinked rapidly, nodded, and breathed in and out deeply. “I think…that might be wise,” he replied, sounding half-strangled.

“Right, I’ll just—” John said, pointing over the wrong shoulder and stumbling over the corner of the wardrobe as he wobbled backwards towards the bedroom door, somehow unable to stop staring at Sherlock. His hand managed to locate the door handle on the third try, and he turned it, saying, “I’ll just—I’ll see you later, yeah?”

Sherlock smiled timidly back at him, still flushed, and nodded again.

John nodded back at him, swallowed, and hastily let himself out of the room, accidentally slamming the door behind him. He leant his back against the door, closed his eyes, and breathed heavily, feeling like he’d just stepped out of a fire into cool, crisp air. He was grinning broadly, his heart soaring. Yeah, that’d been awkward as hell, but at the same time, that was an amazingly good step in the right direction.

Suddenly, from the other side of the door, John heard a booming, joyful, “ **YES** ” followed by what sounded like Sherlock throwing himself onto his bed. John covered his mouth to stop from giggling out loud and moved away from the door, sauntering down the hallway in the direction of the breakfast room.

When he came into the room, he found himself pulled into a hug by Mummy Holmes, and he squawked into her shoulder in surprise. She abruptly pulled back and gazed down at him fondly, her eyes bluer than a summer sky.

“Well done, _moy zyat’_ ,” she said.

“Er, thanks,” he said awkwardly. “I haven’t really done anything, though.”

She patted his shoulder once and gestured for him to sit at the table. “You have certainly cheered him up, in any case. It feels like the sun breaking through after a long storm.”

He sat down at the table and let her set a plate of omelettes and muffins in front of him. He slowly started eating, smiling softly all the while, and looked up when Sherlock came into the room. Their eyes connected. A flicker of a smile passed between them, and they looked away.

“Good morning, _kotenok_ ,” said Mummy.

“Morning,” Sherlock said briefly, fetching himself a coffee and a muffin and sitting beside John. They glanced at each other again and looked away, continuing to eat in a somewhat bashful silence. Mummy simply looked amused.

“Um,” said John, after a few minutes of this. He gestured at his snowflake jumper. “So, does anyone know where this came from? I sort of just…found it.” He looked to Mrs. Holmes. “Was wondering if maybe you knit it.”

She shook her head. “It is not my work.”

“It’s the room, John,” Sherlock answered, sipping at his coffee. He waved idly to his own hair and the furred trim of his coat. “Same forces responsible for this. It’s making you festive.”

“Oh,” John said. So it was just one of his existing jumpers redesigned. His brow furrowed. “Why’s it doing it now, though?”

Sherlock coloured a bit, cleared his throat, and looked out the window.

“Oh,” John said again. He looked down to his plate. “Let’s just forget I asked that, then.”

“Probably for the best,” Sherlock replied.

Mummy failed to look bothered. She just sipped at her tea and said, “It simply means that it believes you’re pair-bonded now. Magic likes matching sets, and it tends to prefer earnest emotion over a business transaction.”

John glanced over to Sherlock and found him staring back at him, lips quirked cautiously upwards. He returned the smile with a small one of his own, then looked back down at his plate.

“Guess that’s all right then,” he said quietly, picking up his fork and knife once more.

He felt Sherlock’s shoe press lightly against his own, creating a gentle but discreet point of contact between them, and together they finished breakfast in their first peaceful silence since the first and last kisses of St. Nicholas Day. 

***

John stayed until the tea break during the morning session of gift-sorting, noting with some relief that the elves seemed a lot more energized than they had been of late. He’d chatted pleasantly enough with Mummy all the while, but he was feeling that familiar itch that idleness always brought him when left too long, and somehow watching Sherlock in light of their new…understanding of sorts did nothing to calm that itch for movement, activity, _energy_.

When Sherlock was drawn out of his trance, he’d sent John a mildly annoyed look and stated, “Your mind is like _ants_ , John, stop it.”

“Sure thing, kettle,” John had retorted, then passed him a plate of gingerbread.

They’d all sat on the bench, taking tea and biscuits, and John had quietly attempted to assimilate the weight of Sherlock’s arm as it lay stretched across his shoulders. Because this was a thing couples did—they did the arm thing when they were sitting next to each other. It was a bit odd not being on the arm-stretching side of things for once. Not _bad_ , exactly, but odd enough that he couldn’t stop being _aware_ of it, and his mind was unhelpfully assessing the whole situation as an ambiguous ‘ _huh_.’

He cleared his throat and said, “I think I’ll find something else to do for a bit, if that’s all right.”

Sherlock scowled at him, squeezing his grip on John’s shoulder a bit harder. “I work better when you’re here.”

“Well, I feel useless just sitting here,” John protested. “And we all know what happened last time I tried to help with this.”

Sherlock looked like he’d been about to say something snippy, but Mrs. Holmes interrupted him by saying, “You’re free to go as you like, John. I shall hold the sentry here.”

John sent her a grateful smile and, on looking to Sherlock, he was given a huff and a dismissive hand wave.

“I’ll find you later, John,” Sherlock added as John stood up, and John replied with a smile and a nod before retreating out of the gift-sorting room in search of something productive to do.

Part of the problem with the North Pole, though, was even when it bustled with activity, it was all so _tame_. As Sherlock had told him once, the Obligation followed a routine, a set schedule, and so far the only things that had managed to upset that rigid, safe predictability were Sherlock and John themselves. The only other thing that came close to _exciting_ around here was reindeer racing, and without Sherlock with him, it hardly seemed as fun.

John considered his gun—which, yes, he _had_ packed out of habit, but there was absolutely no use for it here, of course, and really nowhere to test his marksmanship unless they were suddenly attacked by polar bears. He sighed and crossed his arms, looking up at the curly-haired angel topper on the towering Christmas tree.

 _Fairy tales_ , Mrs. Holmes had said. _We all live in fairy tales._ It seemed like Sherlock’s life and ancestry would make that statement true, both inside and outside the North Pole. But what about John? What was his role in the fairy tale of Sherlock’s life?

 _A hero, perhaps, if given the right opportunity and resources_ , he remembered Sherlock saying, and he flushed crimson at the memory.

…Jesus bloody Christ, had the man actually been _flirting_ with him since then? If it had been anyone else, he would’ve guessed so, which is why John had responded at the time the way he had—but he’d sort of assumed it was a ‘no’ given Sherlock’s reply. Damn Sherlock and his tendency to be a stupid bloody _sphinx!_

 _Sherlock Holmes, you are in trouble_ , John thought grumpily, on the off-chance that Sherlock was tuning in to the broadcast. He crossed his arms and started walking away from the tree, following a path at random.

 _If anything, I feel like the simpering damsel_ , he continued moodily, weaving around a handful of elves who were carrying a strangely enormous marzipan pig down the hall. Considering that he was mostly sitting around and waiting to be useful half the time for his moody hero and unexpected love interest, the role seemed appropriate.

 _And as far as heroes go, **you’ve** been pretty rubbish at it lately_ , he thought at Sherlock. _Not to mention a bloody temperamental love interest._ He sighed, coming out of his reverie and realising he’d made his way into the main workshop. He wandered over to the bakery side of the room and eyed the biscuit table, where an elf was flattening a sheet of dough and cutting out shapes.

“Can I help you with that – please?” he added at the last second, having learnt that saying ‘please’ would pretty much get him anything at the North Pole, including work. The elf dithered for a moment between the rolling pin and the shape-cutter, then handed him the shape-cutter with a truly winning smile.

“Ta,” John replied, then rolled up his sleeves and set to work pressing out star shapes from the dough.

He let himself daydream for a while as he worked, reminiscing over his and Sherlock’s last case before this whole Father Christmas thing had started, which had involved an American crocodile, three members of the Pink Panthers, and a nearly fatal chase across a circus tightrope. That had been a fun one—Sherlock had been particularly clever figuring out the link between the bejewelled tightrope walker and the shady zookeeper, and they’d gone head-to-head with the ringleader of the jewel thieves in a terrifying feat of acrobatics that involved Sherlock swinging from the bar upside-down and clinging to John with one hand while John shot the fire-breathing culprit with his free hand and dangled three storeys from the ground. He still needed a title for that case. The Three-Ring Ring Theft?

John smiled to himself, placing the star shapes one by one on a baking pan. He couldn’t wait to get back to that life. Even though the North Pole was nice in its own way, _nothing_ could beat what was waiting for them when they came back home. That was where both he and Sherlock were in their true element, dashing around like madmen.

_Except it won’t be quite the same, will it?_

The thought hit him like a bolt of lightning. Because now they wouldn’t be ‘Sherlock and John,’ they’d be ‘Sherlock-and-John,’ one unit, the way couples became over time. Not that they weren’t a unit before, but, well, they’d be…even more so, now. They’d be the type of unit that got a single wedding invitation addressed to both of them instead of being a Plus One or getting separate invites. Then there were their friends and Mrs. Hudson to break the news to. Not that their friends wouldn’t be accepting—he was almost certain they’d all be fine with it—but the fact that it would be news at all would be a Thing.

Then there was the other thing. Sex. Which it seemed Sherlock was in favour of, and which John was fairly certain he was also in favour of. Which they hadn’t yet discussed how it was going to work between them, but he could guess that it would be figured out eventually. Given this morning, most likely it would be figured out imminently. Possibly even tonight. _Um._

John set down the star cutter and stared into the middle distance for a moment.

They could come home from a case one day and just…have sex. They could go to bed at night and have sex. They could wake up in the morning together and have sex. They could have sex in the shower. God, knowing Sherlock, he’d probably turn sex into an experiment at some point and try to do everything. And then he’d graph the results.

John slowly and blindly reached for a stool, sat down, and then rested his forehead against the edge of the flour-dusted table.

One gleeful part of him was registering the fact that they could potentially be having a whole lot of sex when they returned to their normal lives, and another part of him was dumbfoundedly pondering what would it be like. Not that he hadn’t had any idea of how sex worked, obviously, but the fact that it was _Sherlock_ … He swallowed, conjuring up that now too-familiar image of Sherlock staring up at him from his knees, and then he abruptly shook off the image as best he could because _now_ was certainly not the time to be thinking of _that_.

“John Watson, are you all right?” squeaked the elf with the rolling pin.

“I’m fine,” he replied, somewhat strangled, and lifted his head back up. He could feel the heat in his face, and he cleared his throat and stood up again, determinedly pressing a few more stars into a new sheet of dough.

And it wouldn’t just be about sex, either. There’d be kissing—which, as it turns out, would be amazing considering all the practice they’d been having with it. Kissing when one of them came home, maybe. Kissing in cabs maybe. Cuddling? Well…he had no idea where Sherlock fell on the whole PDA and cuddling thing, so maybe not. But maybe also yes. Maybe a hand-hold here and there. Maybe hugging. All of these things were a possibility, lingering like distant clouds on a sunrise.

He realised he’d stopped working and hastily started up again, but now he was picturing Sherlock as he’d imagined him while hypnotised—contented, smiling, a permanent fixture in John’s little circle of happiness and adventure—but with that added layer of affection between them, the one called _lover_. John found himself smiling, pressing out star after star and sliding them in place on the metal pans, imagining that he was creating little sugar constellations that awaited fire to transform them.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Sherlock rumbled in his ear.

John instantly elbowed him in the stomach and shoved him face-first onto the table, twisting an arm behind his back. He just as instantly swore and jumped backwards after he’d done it.

“ _Jesus_ , Sherlock, you should know better than to sneak up on me,” John hissed at him, crossing his arms, then uncrossing them and placing his hands on his hips. He breathed in and out deeply.

Sherlock made a small rasping noise and picked himself off the table, brushing flour and sugar dough out of his face and clothes. “Apologies,” he muttered, turning to John. The corner of his mouth turned up, and in spite of having had his face shoved into sugar dough he looked amused. “Glöckchen, take a break,” he said, glancing to the elf.

“But Master Sherlock—!” Glöckchen began.

Sherlock gave the elf a pointed look and held out his hand. “ _Now_ , please, and be late about it.”

The elf timidly handed him the rolling pin and scurried away. Sherlock sent John a cheeky smirk and smacked one end of the rolling pin into his other hand. “Biscuits, is it?” he chirped, a bit too cheerily.

John was acutely aware that the rest of the elves in the room were making a mass exodus. “Er,” he said, turning his head to watch the last of them disappear out the door. “Yeah. Um…it hasn’t been _that_ long, has it?” he asked, turning back to Sherlock.

Sherlock shrugged. “Maybe an hour or two.” He kept his gaze on John and idly tapped the other handle of the rolling pin in his open hand.

John shuffled and reflexively fell into parade rest, then broke eye contact. “…Things going well at your end?” he asked.

Sherlock made a noncommittal noise, then said, “My concentration’s off.”

“Uh…sorry,” John said, rubbing at the back of his neck and looking up at the ceiling, turning red.

“I don’t mind,” Sherlock replied lowly, and suddenly he was directly in front of John and staring down at him with a look as warm as hot tea.

John gulped. Sherlock’s grin stretched.

Then Sherlock said, “How many sheets have you done?”

John blinked. “Ah, sorry?”

“Biscuits,” Sherlock replied, with a slight jerk of his head in the direction of the biscuits.

John attempted to think past the magnetic force pulling him towards the man in front of him. “Two,” he answered.

“Only _two?_ ” Sherlock scoffed, looking teasingly appalled. “Even distracted, I could do better than that.”

With a sudden _woosh_ , Sherlock drew away from him and proceeded to smack the living daylights out of a ball of dough with the rolling pin and then flatten it out. John practically swayed in the whiplash following Sherlock’s sudden departure.

Sherlock was already cutting out star shapes at a blurringly fast speed.

“Okay, _why_ are we suddenly focusing on biscuits?” John asked, cautiously stepping beside Sherlock and watching with no small amount of awe as he powered through the sheet.

“We’re English,” Sherlock retorted with a smirk, grabbing one tiny edge of the dough and effortlessly peeling off the excess from the cut-outs in one seamless pull upwards. John gawked. “Tea and biscuits, that’s the national motto.”

“No it isn’t,” John said distantly, watching as Sherlock balled up the excess and started beating it flat again.

Sherlock paused and turned his head to John. “It isn’t?”

“No, it’s _Dieu et mon droit_ ,” John replied.

Sherlock crinkled his nose. “Well that’s rather pointless,” he stated, then resumed flattening the dough.

“You know how to make biscuits,” John stated after a long minute watching Sherlock speed his way along.

Sherlock hummed and said, “Mummy only knows muffins. Father was the chef in the family.” He peeled off another miraculously intact frame of excess dough. “He had a fondness for baking in particular. Said it was the only universal science everyone could agree on.” Sherlock suddenly reached for a spatula and started shuffling all the star biscuits onto a baking pan. He frowned slightly as he placed the last one down. “I imagine he would’ve been a happier man if he’d chosen to become a pastry chef instead of a politician. His loss.”

Sherlock picked up the tiny ball of leftover dough and turned to John with a raised eyebrow. “You want it?”

John furrowed his eyebrows. “It has raw eggs in it.”

“So?”

“Risk of salmonella.”

Sherlock shrugged and popped the ball into his mouth, chewing. “What’s life without a bit of a risk?” he mumbled, swallowing. Then, as if a switch had suddenly flipped, his gaze turned molten. “Don’t you think?” he murmured.

John swallowed, trapped in his gaze, and his thoughts funnelled down to that one word— _risk_.

It _would_ be a risk, wouldn’t it? All relationships were—but _especially_ romantic ones. There was a risk that things wouldn’t last, a risk that the friendship wouldn’t survive a break-up, a risk of separation, a risk of grief, a risk of loss, a palpable and vivid risk of heartbreak. Even if they stayed together the rest of their lives, that risk would be actualised in death. It wasn’t a risk, it was _certainty_. Mrs. Holmes knew that—she was living the result of taking that risk, carrying out the fairy tale to its lonely end.

One day this man would break his heart if he let him have it.

 _This is so dangerous_ , John reasoned, heart racing as he stared into the shining life and liquid warmth radiating from Sherlock’s eyes.

“And yet…here you are,” Sherlock said, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he grinned.

“God, yes,” John breathed back, jumping at the tiniest touch of Sherlock’s fingertips on his hand where it rested on the table.

“Your move, John. I promised not to impose,” Sherlock murmured, bending his head down all the same. He looked terribly pleased with himself.

John didn’t bother being polite about it. He crashed his mouth into Sherlock’s and threw his arms around his neck, shoving his tongue into his mouth and barrelling them into the kiss he’d been wishing for _days_ ago. Sherlock instantly moaned and twined his tongue around John’s, hands latching onto the back of John’s neck and around his back, pulling him closer. _Yes. Yes yes yes, **this**._ John wanted _closer_ , and though his hands were by turn burying themselves in Sherlock’s hair and pressing at the strong curve of his jaw, and though their arms and tongues were sliding hotly against each other as they moved in the momentum, it didn’t feel close enough. He tasted sugar crystals. He felt heat. He smelled the crisp, dusty scent of flour and the underlying musk of Sherlock’s skin. His heart surged, brimming with euphoria. He slid his arms from Sherlock’s neck and brought them to Sherlock’s waist, pushing him back against the edge of the table. Sherlock broke the kiss briefly with a surprised gasp, and John crowded him in and devoured his lips, revelling in the loud, luxurious groan it drew and the sudden heat and pressure of Sherlock’s leg as it coiled around the back of his thigh.

Then Sherlock shoved him off and snapped a venomous glare over John’s shoulder. “ _Mummy, do you MIND?_ ” he hissed, hastily straightening himself up and flushing bright red.

John nearly gave himself whiplash as he spun around and allowed the sensation of instant mortification to slam him in the face. He was distantly aware that he was probably cursing under his breath.

She looked unfazed. “I _did_ knock,” she said dryly. “With great volume and frequency.”

Sherlock stormed up to her. “And if no one answers, that’s generally the cue to _leave_.”

“ _You’re_ the one who asked for me to retrieve you after half an hour with no exceptions, Sherlock,” she stated. “It’s not my fault you did not manage your own time limit better.”

Sherlock made an anguished-sounding noise through his nose, then swivelled and paced back to John.

John was busy trying to make himself look respectable, but he managed to turn a rather annoyed look on Sherlock. “Did you seriously think you could seduce me in just half an hour?” he hiss-whispered at him.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and put two solid hands on John’s shoulders. “No, of course not, John.”

John blinked at him.

Sherlock looked over his shoulder with a frown and made a shooing motion at his mother. “Yes, I’ll be along in a minute, stop _hovering_ ,” he called.

John glanced over at her, saw her smile briefly, then watched as she turned her back and slowly began walking out of the room. He looked back to Sherlock, a bit confused. One of Sherlock’s hands lifted from his shoulder and placed itself on John’s jaw, thumb brushing over his cheek. He offered John a small, but sincere smile.

“John, it’s unfortunately three days until Christmas Eve, and I still have a lot of work left.” His smile stretched into a smirk and he leaned in slightly, so John could feel the humidity of his breath on his own mouth. “And I’m a very selfish man,” he murmured, dark as sin. Tilting his head to the side, he lightly dragged his lips across John’s cheek to his ear. John shuddered, instinctively closing his eyes and leaning his head aside so Sherlock had better access. “John, I want my first night with you all to myself.”

John felt some part of his mind quietly combust. “Sherlock,” he rasped, one hand reflexively grabbing at Sherlock’s waist.

“No paperwork waiting in the night, none for the morning, the world quieted,” Sherlock continued. “Just you. You and me.” He pressed his lips to John’s earlobe. “Can you wait for that, John? Three days. I’ll get it done in three days. The evening before we deliver, that will be ours.”

John wrapped his arms around Sherlock and just held him, smiling, warm, overflowing with what he couldn’t deny was love. “Yes,” he said.

He felt Sherlock smile against his ear, then the coil of his arms around John as he returned the embrace.

A kiss sealed the shared promise, and it was performed with much the same earnestness that the ancients once kissed holy books, contracts, the rings of kings and popes, and the hands of unattainable women they vowed to love and serve forever.


	15. Peppermint and Foreplay

John was surprised how easy it was to adjust to being a couple after he and Sherlock had finally arrived at the same page. In a way, things hardly seemed different at all. Sherlock was ploughing through the work like a draught horse, up all night checking the List and up all day sorting through the gifts; John was his audience and occasionally found something else to do when the itch of doing nothing started driving him mad. The difference was primarily in how they sat together during breaks and meals—closer than before, legs often touching, sometimes an arm across the back of the other’s chair. Once or twice John would draw Sherlock out of whatever deep contemplation he fell into during dinner by lightly squeezing his knee, to which Sherlock started and blinked rapidly back to the present before sending John a fond quirk of his lips and settling his own hand overtop John’s.

Then there was the kissing, which had been happening before, obviously, but the kisses lingered and simmered like tandoori chicken cooking for hours on end, spices saturating the air, and they savoured the taste for a long minute as though they were taste-testing what was to come. They were some of the best kisses John could recall from recent memory, and whenever they broke apart he could feel the aftermath of Sherlock’s mouth on his like the capsaicin heat of a pepper.

On December 23rd John awoke feeling wide-awake. It was today. Today was the day. Today. Tonight.

He sat up abruptly and looked to the fireplace for Sherlock and was surprised to find he was not there, which is where John had been finding him normally for the past few days whenever he woke up.

“Sherlock?”

Getting no response, John inched out of bed and looked into the bath, finding no Sherlock in there either. Reasoning that perhaps he’d gone to finish the sorting already, John started running the bathtub and stripped out of his sleep clothes. Then he paused, turned off the tap before the water had finished filling, and looked over his shoulder to the sauna door in the corner—painted a simple white to blend in with the walls, with only a small gold door handle to really signify that it was a door. He went over to it and knocked.

“Come in,” replied Sherlock’s muffled voice.

John hesitated, grabbed a towel from off the rack and wrapped it around his waist, then opened the door. He was greeted with swirls of warm steam curling against his chest and face.

“So you _are_ in here,” John said, stepping inside and shutting the door behind him.

Sherlock was lying horizontally across the only seating area in the tiny sauna, poised much as he would be on the Baker Street sofa with the exception that he was only wearing a towel. The humidity in the room had added extra spring to his hair.

“Mm,” Sherlock replied, not bothering to open his eyes. “I finished checking the List around three, but it was too early for anyone to be awake for the sorting. I had nothing better to do until you woke up.”

“Oh, that’s good,” John said lamely, tamping down the little jump of anticipation in his chest. He looked around and realised he had nowhere to sit. “So, uh, you’ve been in here for three hours?” he asked, pulling a puzzled frown at Sherlock. “Aren’t you hot?”

Sherlock answered with a small smirk and cracked an eye open, turning his head slightly to John. “More or less three hours.” He suddenly slid his feet back so that his knees arched into the air and created space on the wooden bench. “Sit down, John,” he said pleasantly.

For a brief moment John stood there, derailed by the fact that Sherlock’s towel had slid higher up his thighs by the movement, but then his legs moved for him and he found himself sitting in the space temporarily vacated by Sherlock’s calves. Temporarily, because as soon as he’d sat down Sherlock had placed his legs back overtop John’s thighs. John waffled briefly about where he should put his hands, then settled on resting them on top of Sherlock’s legs, running a thumb across the hot, hairy skin.

He leant back against the warm panelled wood and looked to Sherlock, who had closed his eyes again with a small sigh.

“You sure you’re not overheated?” he asked, tapping a finger against Sherlock’s knee.

“I’ve told you before, John. As a Gift-Giver, my body adjusts to extreme temperature changes easier than usual.”

“Okay,” John said quietly, sliding a hand over to one of Sherlock’s ankles and idly caressing the smooth skin there. “So you’ll finish sorting today.”

“The x, y, and z’s, yes. It should go by quickly,” Sherlock rumbled.

“Good,” John stated. He took a deep breath of humid air and let it out slowly.

He suddenly had one of Sherlock’s feet pressing against his ear, lightly pushing his head into the wall.

“John, the point of a sauna is to relax. You’re not relaxing.”

“Get your foot out of my face,” John grumbled, pulling the foot off his shoulder and letting it fall back into his lap. “Since when do _you_ go for ‘relaxing’ anyway?”

“Since relaxing acquired a favourable component to it,” Sherlock replied smoothly. He sighed, shifting his shoulders a bit to get more comfortable, and flexed his toes. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. “When I’m working, the noise is bearable. Energy is expended, my brain stretched and satisfied. It is the silences I can’t stand—the stillness, stagnation. That is when I need you most, John.” He lifted his head from the bench and connected his gaze with John’s. “You fill the silence.”

John blinked, then smiled. He looked back down to Sherlock’s legs and lightly squeezed a foot. “I know what you mean,” he said quietly. Because how often had he thought the same thing, hated the sound of nothing happening, and turned to Sherlock for the relief of firecracker life?

They were a matching set of adrenalin junkies all right.

John looked back to Sherlock’s face, finding his eyes closed once again and his face relaxed and pink from the heat of the sauna. He smiled and took a moment to study that face in detail, revelling in the rare moment of spotting Sherlock’s face at rest. He couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as though Sherlock had gained a few more thin wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, making him seem a few years older—though perhaps the white hair and eyebrows could have something to do with that. A few beads of sweat dotted his forehead near the hairline, and his mouth was flush with colour. Sherlock looked healthy, if a little worn at the edges.

John closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, picking up the crisp, clean nothing-scent of steam billowing from the heated rocks in the corner and the sharper, distinctive salt-musk of Sherlock’s sweat beneath him—sweat he could feel condensing where the back of Sherlock’s legs rested against the exposed portion of John’s thighs, creating a hot, slick point of contact broken by the white fluff of John’s towel.

John exhaled and opened his eyes again, gazing down the length of Sherlock’s torso and noting with some amusement that the hair darkening his armpits and the wiry patch across his chest had remained a deep brown colour despite the transformation, that the arch of his collarbone was pronounced to such a degree that art students would salivate to sketch it, and that he had deceptively muscled arms that were usually hidden by the smooth lines of his suit jackets.

Then John realised that he was unconsciously massaging a strong calf in one hand and that his other hand was creeping over a knee towards a thigh, not to mention that his eyes had inevitably drifted down to Sherlock’s towel, which had hitched up dangerously high over the course of John’s time in the sauna. For a hypnotic second, John stared at the crinkles of the towel, gulped, then scanned back up to Sherlock’s tranquil expression, feeling a tell-tale quickening in his chest and a dazed light-headedness he associated with overheating and arousal. His sweating palm ran over a raised, smooth line on Sherlock’s thigh—an old knife wound, it felt like—and John was suddenly struck by the idea that he wanted to kiss it, as well as the mole on Sherlock’s neck, and that other scar near his bellybutton…

 _Jesus, he really **is** attractive_ , John realised with no small amount of wonder, drinking in the sight of Sherlock stretched out complacently next to him, sweating against his skin, artlessly relaxed and rich in Sherlockian charm.

Sherlock’s eyes shot open. “What?”

“What?” John echoed, blinking out of his lust-addled spell.

Sherlock lifted his head, knitting his eyebrows together. “You said I was attractive,” he stated, though it was almost phrased as a question.

John realised where his one hand was and subtly retreated it below Sherlock’s knee, blushing. “Ah, no,” he said.

Except Sherlock was smirking. “You thought it, didn’t you?”

John sent him a close-lipped smile. “No, I think you’re mistaken,” he replied, patting a leg apologetically. “You must’ve heard it from somebody else,” he teased, because the last thing he needed in his life was Sherlock’s (justified) vanity in his genius carrying over into his looks. If it did, the strutting would _never_ end.

But Sherlock’s smile just stretched and he rubbed the flank of his leg up against John’s torso. “John, I never knew you thought such flattering things of me.”

John fought back a chuckle and lightly pushed the leg away from his stomach. “Nope, sorry, you’re still Top Git in my GAH!” he yelped, shoving the adventurous foot away from where it’d pressed into his groin.

“But I’m an _attractive_ git now, aren’t I?” Sherlock retorted with a leer, kneading his toes into John’s thigh and trying to creep a foot under John’s towel. “Or so the growing evidence of your arousal would indicate.”

“Oi, quit it!” John barked, pushing both of Sherlock’s legs off him entirely so they slid sideways to the floor. His face and neck radiated with embarrassment. “I thought we were…you know. Not yet.”

“Mm, yes,” Sherlock mumbled, abruptly sitting up and leaning further into John’s personal space. He placed a hand on John’s knee. “Unfortunately, I can be an impatient man,” he rumbled, pitching his voice as low as it would go and breathing into John’s open, spellbound mouth. He smoothed his warm, callused palm up John’s thigh and dipped his eyelids, tilting his head to the side, then said in a whisper, “Besides, you’re _so_ fun to tease.”

John blinked. Then he closed his mouth and leant backwards. He lifted his eyebrows. Then he raised a corner of his mouth and sniffed incredulously. “Mm, _right_ , I think I’ve had enough sauna for today,” he retorted, patting Sherlock’s hand companionably and standing up.

Sherlock scowled. “ _John_ ,” he groaned, snagging John’s arm. “Don’t take it like that.”

“I’m not angry,” John reassured him, disengaging his arm from Sherlock’s grip. “Just not in the mood to be teased.”

He retreated out of the sauna and inhaled deeply, heart pounding. He heard Sherlock open the door again behind him.

“What about seduced?” Sherlock asked. “Prolonged seduction was more my aim.”

“Teasing, Sherlock,” John corrected, quickly deciding he could have a bath later and that his priority should be getting dressed instead. He shifted into the bedroom, closed the door behind him in Sherlock’s face and dashed to his wardrobe, pulling on pants and trousers at light speed. He heard Sherlock open the door as he was pulling a vest over his head.

“You’re in quite a hurry for someone who isn’t angry,” Sherlock stated.

From out of the corner of his eye, John saw him coming closer, and he shoved his arms through the sleeves of a shirt and buttoned rapidly. “Not angry, annoyed,” he corrected under his breath. When Sherlock was about a foot away, he decided to skip a jumper altogether and escaped out the door.

Walking down the safe, public hallway towards the breakfast room, John breathed a sigh of relief. Dear god, they’d been playing at this flirtation for _days_ now, and it was today— _the_ day—and the anticipation was already like an over-tightened violin string without King Arse trying to make it worse.

“So you’re annoyed because it’s working,” said Sherlock, and John spun around with his heart in his throat. Sherlock was standing right behind him, still wearing only a towel.

“ _WHAT—are you doing?!_ ” John hissed, remembering to keep his voice down after the first syllable.

“Chasing after you,” Sherlock retorted, folding his arms with a pout.

“ _Without any clothes_ ,” John said, blushing up a storm and looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was looking their way.

Sherlock shrugged. “Oh, they’ve all seen it before. I went through a nudity stage when I was four.”

“ _Not the point_ ,” John snapped, glaring at him.

“Mm, no, the point is that you _like_ seeing me naked now, isn’t it?” Sherlock said with a grin. “Wouldn’t want to be caught ogling me in front of my mother, would you?”

“ _Shut up._ ” He narrowed his eyes at Sherlock’s naked smugness, lifted his chin, and sourly thought ‘ _sugar plums_ ’ before executing a sharp turn and marching to the breakfast room.

He heard Sherlock chuckling behind him. “Funny, John, I never took you as one to play ‘hard to get.’”

 _SUGAR. PLUMS,_ John mentally retorted, determined not to let the git hear one single strand of admiration from him for the rest of the day. He stormed into the breakfast room and said, “Do something about him” to Mummy Holmes, then he beelined to the counter to retrieve muffins and eggs and fried mushrooms and tomatoes.

Sherlock sauntered nakedly into the room like a royal concubine used to getting anything she wanted.

Mummy raised an eyebrow. “Good morning, _kotenok_.”

“Morning.” Sherlock fetched himself a heaping plate of food, sat down, and stretched with a yawn.

John diverted his gaze and sipped tea.

As Sherlock started eating, Mummy said, “Are you planning on finishing your sorting in that state, Sherlock?”

“I hadn’t planned on it,” Sherlock replied. “Though unless John lets me back into our room, I will have to proceed as such.”

John sent him a foul look. Sherlock smirked.

“Sherlock, it is not kind to tease your intended,” Mrs. Holmes said.

Sherlock frowned at her, then looked to John again with a cat’s-eye glint. “Why should I be kind? Kindness is a societal behaviour constructed to foster cooperation among strangers. Honesty is by far the better condition to foster intimacy in a relationship,” he stated, popping the ‘p.’

“But cruelty is not,” she replied smoothly.

Sherlock hummed in grudging agreement and slurped at his tea, then set the cup down and slowly dragged his tongue along his upper lip with a lingering gaze at John. John gave him an incredulous stare, then kicked him under the table.

“ _Ow_ ,” Sherlock said, giving him an affronted look.

John smiled at him. “To be perfectly _honest_ , Sherlock, I think you deserved that,” he replied, then quirked his head a little. “You know, I think our intimacy feels much more fostered now.”

Sherlock scoffed and turned his head away, but not before John caught the corner of a smile spreading across his lips. John shook his head, smiling in turn, and glanced over to Mrs. Holmes. She gave him an approving nod and placed a hand on his arm.

Breakfast was a peaceful enough affair after that. When John was certain that Sherlock had stopped being an obnoxious prat for the present, he apologetically rubbed a foot against Sherlock’s bare shin, to which Sherlock subtly smiled and tapped a toe against John’s foot in return. Afterwards, he escorted Sherlock without protest back to their room.

At the mistletoe lock, Sherlock placed a hand on his hip and cocked his head to one side. John let his gaze flicker briefly down Sherlock’s chest, then looked back up and smiled with a small nod. Sherlock grinned and swooped, catching John’s mouth in a quick, affectionate smooch with his humongous hands tilting John’s face upwards. He pulled away with a sharkish smirk and said lowly, “I’ll work hard for you today, John.”

John felt himself blush a little, sensing innuendo in the words and in Sherlock’s raised eyebrow, and for a moment he was transfixed by the sheer naked warmth of Sherlock directly in front of him. Sherlock brushed a thumb against his cheek with a fond look, then went inside.

John blinked, then turned with a small exhale and started walking. He stopped in the middle of the hallway and furrowed his eyebrows. He flexed the fingers of one hand. Then he straightened his spine, turned sharply around, and marched back. He knocked.

Sherlock opened the door with a confused expression. “What is it, John?”

“Sorry, forgot something,” John said, then yanked Sherlock down by the back of his neck and surged up against his mouth, forcing his tongue between Sherlock’s lips as he gasped in surprise. He pushed the hand at Sherlock’s neck up into his hair and coiled his fingers tightly into the curls; his other hand snaked around Sherlock’s waist and pulled him closer, and he held Sherlock firmly in place as he plundered a series of breathless moans out of him with each slick caress of his tongue. Sherlock’s hands fell feebly against John’s chest.

When John finally broke the kiss, Sherlock was heaving for breath and he had a deep scarlet tinge across his cheekbones. A kaleidoscope of colour churned in his eyes. John smirked and pressed himself flush against Sherlock’s inescapably aroused body, turned his lips to Sherlock’s ear, and growled, “Work _harder_.”

Sherlock made a noise like a verbalized keyboard smash.

John smoothly moved out of the embrace and went to his wardrobe. He took out a red and white cable-knit jumper from a shelf and pulled it on, then glanced over at the dazed Sherlock staring at him from the doorway. He went over and gently shifted him back into the room.

“I think I know how to play your game a bit better than you do, Sherlock,” he stated. “Don’t think you’ve won it just yet.”

Sherlock’s eyes widened fractionally, and he turned a full-fledged crimson.

Feeling reasonably satisfied with his revenge, John turned to leave.

Suddenly he felt Sherlock’s hand close around his, and he looked back. Sherlock lifted the hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to John’s fingers, his eyes closed and forehead deeply furrowed. John stared, unsure what to make of this reaction and the tingling feeling of Sherlock’s breath against his fingers that lit up every nerve in his arm and spread throughout the whole of him.

Sherlock sighed deeply through his nose, the wrinkles in his forehead gradually smoothing out, and he opened his eyes again. He lifted his mouth away from John’s hand and stared at him.

John blinked several times. “What was that?” he asked.

Sherlock briefly cast his eyes to the floor and shrugged. “Just…trying it out.”

John just stared at him, keenly aware that Sherlock still had a hold of his hand and that he could still feel the ghost of Sherlock’s lips right on his middle and ring fingers.

“Won’t be doing that again,” Sherlock stated, looking a bit abashed for probably the first time in his life.

“No, it’s…fine,” John said quietly, and damn it all to hell, he could feel himself blushing again.

Sherlock met his eyes and smiled softly. “Good,” he murmured. He squeezed John’s hand. “Catch you later.”

“Yeah,” John said, just as Sherlock finally let go of his hand. They kept eye contact until Sherlock closed the door, and John exhaled in one long sigh.

If he’d learnt anything at all in the past few weeks, it was that being in love with Sherlock Holmes was definitely a test of endurance. 

***

John was helping to make candy canes, and he was desperately trying to figure out whether dwelling on what was going to happen that night was helpful in mentally preparing him or if it was psyching him out too much. He really couldn’t tell. He’d considered waiting in the gift sorting room to watch Sherlock finish the rest of the sorting, but the idea of sitting still and trying to be a decent conversationalist with Sherlock’s mother all the while did not seem like a good idea.

So instead he was folding and rolling the daylights out of warm, sticky “white” candy until it actually turned white, which he then handed off to Azúcar who was both rolling out the red-dyed candy and moulding the two colours together. Except the mixture kept hardening before it was white so he’d have to set it by the fire for a few seconds to warm up again and then take it out and continue rolling the daylights out of it.[21] Luckily, elves were apparently infinitely patient creatures and didn’t seem to mind that John took forever at chores he begged to be allowed to do. They also had a knack for knowing when he wasn’t in a conversational mood, and they were fantastic at not being offended by it. It was a wonder that Sherlock didn’t like them more.

He wondered how far along Sherlock was in the sorting. He wondered if he’d see him at supper…or before then…or after then. Sherlock had said the rest of the sorting would not take long. However, Sherlockian standards of time were inconsistent; ‘not long’ could mean two minutes, or it could mean an entire day—there was no way to tell. But surely there weren’t that many believing children in the X, Y, and Z’s? How long had it been now? An hour?

He handed off the white roll to Azúcar and waited as a new batch of yellowish sugar-goop was poured out in front of him, ready to be rolled.

It occurred to John that they hadn’t actually _prepared_ for sex. They didn’t have…supplies. It’s not as though John had thought to pack condoms (let alone lube) for what he’d thought would’ve been a short trip to help out with lawyers and paperwork, and he was rather confident Sherlock would not have packed any either. God, they didn’t even have the Internet as a resource.

Well…that was all right, though, wasn’t it? They’d figure something out that would work for them until they were home; historically speaking, there were leagues of men who’d gone before them without modern conveniences. And it’s not like John was unfamiliar with sex. He was a doctor, and he’d had plenty of practical experience (granted, it wasn’t with men, but he wasn’t clueless about the male body, obviously).

“John Watson, is something the matter?” Azúcar queried.

Damn, he’d stopped working again. John peeled the goop from the non-stick sheet it was resting on and started rolling it. “No, sorry, it’s fine. I’m fine.”

He had no idea about Sherlock, though. Whether he’d…with another man. Or with another woman. Somehow they hadn’t gotten around to discussing that. Well, surely…Sherlock seemed a bit too at ease with the seduction game to really be all that inexperienced, right? Sherlock hadn’t raised any sort of qualms about the possibility of sex—ten days ago, he’d been fully consenting and all for it, not a single hint of worry or timidity anywhere. So they’d be fine. They’d be perfectly fine. They were fully consenting adults in love who at least had some idea of what they were getting into. They were fine. It’d be fine. It’d be great. It’d be wonderful. Really, nothing could go wrong.

John entirely failed to be surprised when he heard Sherlock boom, “Afternoon!” from somewhere behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see Sherlock grinning ear-to-ear about three feet away—clearly having learnt his lesson about not sneaking up on John from before.

John offered him a small smile, pausing the candy-rolling. “You finished then?” he asked.

“Yes,” Sherlock stated. He was standing with perfect posture and his hands behind his back, watching John with a bright gleam in his eyes.

John kept his smile in place another second, then said, “Er, just hang on, I need to finish this one.” He turned back to the table, realised the candy had hardened too much to roll properly, then sighed and took it over to the fire to warm up again.

Sherlock’s smile had fallen somewhat as he watched John move, his expression instead replaced with his characteristic scrutinising stare. “There _are_ elves who are willing to do that, John.”

“Yeah, I know,” John replied, his eyes on the softening candy. “But I don’t like leaving things half-done.” He carried the pan back to the table and dumped the gradually whitening lump back on the table.

“That’s reassuring to know,” Sherlock rumbled behind him. Suddenly, he felt Sherlock right beside him, and just as suddenly, Sherlock vaulted over the table to the other side.

John stared, momentarily impressed, then blinked as Sherlock stole Azúcar’s red candy and started rolling it himself. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Helping,” Sherlock stated. “You’ve given me an idea.”

John had a feeling that Sherlock’s idea was not going to be in John’s best interest, but he continued rolling out the white candy all the same. When he was done, he handed his roll to Sherlock, who immediately began twisting the strands together. Sherlock directed the elves mixing the sugar concoctions to give John the red mix next, and he took over the white mix with a speedy abandon that John couldn’t help but admire out of the corner of his eye.

However, when Azúcar helpfully tried to take the red-and-white strand away to start cutting it in sections and curving the ends, Sherlock snapped at him to leave it be. He waved impatiently for John to hand over the newly rolled red strand. John did so, watching as Sherlock twisted it with his white strand, then stuck it onto its twin.

“Should work with three,” Sherlock muttered under his breath, waving for the elves to continue.

John shared a baffled look with Azúcar as he was given his puddle of red goop to roll. “Are you trying to make a really fat candy cane?” he asked.

“Something like that,” Sherlock replied, mangling the yellowish goo to its proper shape and colour. “Keep working.”

John complied, barely managing to get the candy into a satisfactorily even tube-shape when Sherlock snatched it from him and twisted it into the white. He and the elves watched curiously as Sherlock squeezed the three cords of candy into one awkward triangular column. Then he rubbed his hands together, sparking up a ball of flame, and ran the fire quickly over the column a few times, softening it.

Sherlock extinguished the flame and picked up the candy column with both hands, squeezing hard at various points on the shaft to make sure they all stuck together, then he slapped it back on the table and rolled it rapidly, making a loud _kathunk-kathunk-kathunk_ sound as the uneven edges were forcibly smoothed and the three separate sticks began melding together.

“John,” Sherlock said with a bit of a gasp for breath, which is when John realised he was staring perhaps a bit _too_ keenly—damn the man and his compellingly long, sticky fingers. “Make a ball out of the white mix,” Sherlock instructed.

The mix was poured out in front of him, and as John set to work coaxing the colour out and making a ball, he realised that the red dye on his palms was turning the candy mix a little pink. “Er, Sherlock,” John said, pointing at the ball.

Sherlock briefly glanced up from his subduing of the giant candy stick and rolled his eyes with a bit of a huff. “Pink will do,” he acceded. Then he held up the candy stick with both hands and fell still.

John stared, inexplicably transfixed. For a heartbeat of time, Sherlock did nothing, then his eyes flashed gold, and his hands clenched around the stick, slowly sliding apart from each other, and right when his fists reached the ends of the staff…they kept going, and the candy stick stretched effortlessly in his hands. Once Sherlock was apparently satisfied with the length, he held it by one hand and brought it up to his eyes to ensure that the staff was straight.

“Amazing,” John said.

The corner of Sherlock’s mouth went up, though he did not look over. “How is the ball coming, John?”

“Uh, right,” John said, looking down at the somewhat lumpy and pink ball. It had hardened while John had been gawking at the magic in front of him, and he sighed and took it over to the fire to warm up again. As he was waiting for the candy to warm up, he heard Sherlock say, “Hand me that knife” and looked over.

Azúcar tentatively handed Sherlock a knife, which he took and started forcing the handle into one end of the candy staff. John furrowed his brow and brought the candy ball back to the table, absently rolling it as he watched Sherlock dip his fingers into a red candy mixture and smear it around the knife’s handle, adhering it further into the stick.

“Why on earth are you making a candy spear?” John asked.

“Not exactly a spear,” Sherlock replied, sucking leftover goo off his fingers.

John blinked, distracted by Sherlock’s pink tongue licking at his lips. “You’re doing this on purpose,” he accused.

Sherlock looked up from the candy weapon with a raised eyebrow. “No, John, I’m clearly doing all of this _by accident_ ,” he retorted. He picked up the spear and squeezed at the juncture of the knife handle and the candy. “Whoops.” He slid his fist down the shaft. “Whoops again,” he intoned, though he was trying to suppress a smirk. Then he ran his tongue along the staff and dipped his eyelids. “Oh dear, I don’t know why this keeps happening,” he said, eyes popping comically wide.

John glared at him. “Not in front of the _elves_ ,” he hissed lowly.

“What elves?” Sherlock replied with an innocent smile.

John looked around. The room had been mysteriously vacated. “What the bloody—Sherlock, you scared them off!”

“I doubt it,” Sherlock rumbled. “They’re merely adept at reading the atmosphere. Especially since I’m the one who provides it around here. Are you done with the ball?”

John sighed, suddenly feeling more self-conscious than before in the quiet of the workshop, and decided that the pink candy ball was about as round and whitish as it was going to get. He rolled it across the table to Sherlock and dipped his hands in a nearby bowl of water to get the stickiness off his skin.

Sherlock smiled idly, picked up the ball, and stabbed it on top of the knife. He inhaled deeply and held his breath a moment. Eyebrows deeply furrowed, Sherlock then blew out slowly over the ball, a blue tinge appearing in his cheeks. John felt frigid wisps of air gust across the table and caress his neck. He shivered.

“New trick,” he mumbled, watching the magic play out in front of him with the same sense of wonder he pretty much always felt around Sherlock.

Sherlock sent him a tiny smile with a bigger glimmer in his eyes. “I expect I’ll be learning a few more later,” he murmured back with a wink, then blew gently across the shaft. John just managed to restrain an embarrassed giggle, covering it up with a dignified clearing of his throat.

“There,” Sherlock said a moment later, curling a hand over the ball and dropping the end of the staff to the floor. “Walking stick with hidden knife feature.” He waved a hand at John. “To go with your ridiculous jumper.”

John looked down and realised he’d completely forgotten about the red and white jumper he’d picked out earlier. He looked back to Sherlock and the walking stick with furrowed eyebrows. “I thought we established that I don’t have a limp anymore,” he said, confused.

“It’s not for _you_ ,” Sherlock said scathingly, dunking a palm in the water bowl and rubbing it against the other one. “I didn’t make it for your height. It’s for me.”

John snorted, then giggled openly. “Of course. You went and made _yourself_ a Christmas present.”

“Why not?” Sherlock replied with a shrug. “The universe likes matching sets.” He suddenly stepped up onto the table and stepped down beside John with a dramatic billow of his coat. To John’s infinite surprise, he then held out his free arm with an inviting lift of his eyebrow.

John sent him an incredulous look. Then he shook his head with a smile and held out his own elbow instead. Sherlock grinned and took it, and they turned and started walking out of the workshop with the steady tap of Sherlock’s new walking stick accompanying them.

It was hard to tell if it was John’s imagination or possibly Sherlock’s effect on the atmosphere, but John could’ve sworn that the gas lamps lining the hallways had been dimmed in an imitation of mood lighting. The flickering glow seemed to make the carvings of deer and wolves in the walls have golden-hued eyes that flashed as they passed by, and the red of holly berries shone brightly in thick leafy clusters of emerald. Sherlock’s hold on his arm was warm and firm.

As they passed into the atrium, Sherlock made sure to tap the bee ornament with the end of his walking stick, then he suddenly veered them in the direction of the family quarters.

“Um,” John said, stumbling a little and looking over his shoulder at the candy-cane marked hallway. “What about dinner?”

“Not hungry,” Sherlock replied, his hold on John’s arm tightening briefly.

John glanced up at his face and saw him smirking. He gulped. “Oh.”

Sherlock looked down sharply. “All right?”

John straightened his spine. “Yeah, of course,” he said, pulling them forwards as he stepped determinedly down the hallway. “’Course I am,” he repeated, placing a hand over Sherlock’s.

“You seem a bit—” Sherlock started.

“No, I’m fine,” John interrupted, parking them in front of their door. Sherlock disengaged his arm from John’s elbow, and John turned to face him and placed a hand on either side of Sherlock’s waist. He looked into Sherlock’s eyes and smiled. “I’m really, really fine,” he said warmly.

“Good,” Sherlock replied, returning the smile and stepping closer.

As soon as the kiss began, it hurtled into an alarming clash of mouths, tongues, and hot peppermint breath. Sherlock’s lips seemed determined to fuse into John’s as the detective pushed closer and made a low growling noise that reverberated from deep in his chest. Distantly, John heard the clatter of the walking stick as Sherlock tossed it into their room, and he suddenly felt Sherlock’s arms curl around him and wrench them together chest-to-chest. His neck was getting a kink in it from keeping his jaw tilted upwards, and he broke the kiss reluctantly, panting for breath. Sherlock was an obscenely warm body pressed against his own—John could feel a thick, clothed bulge pressing into his stomach—and he stared down into John’s eyes with something John had never seen before—something he was certain there was no neat word in English for, a stare of inevitability, covetousness, like the stare of a sky god looking down to the earth, a knowledge that in the chaos of union there would be the explosion of life, destiny unfurling, tales to be told by fireside. It was possession. Irresistible.

“ _Ours_ ,” Sherlock whispered, his hands clutching at John’s neck and back. “ _This is ours, John_.”

“Yes, god yes,” John whispered back, caged in his arms with no desire to escape.

Sherlock pushed them into the room, scrabbling to shut the door behind them. John dove for Sherlock’s neck mouth-first, sucking a kiss just above the scarf and pulling off said scarf as he did so. Sherlock made a noise halfway between a giggle and a breathy moan, which John immediately decided was the best noise in existence so he sucked even harder and was rewarded with a startled-sounding “ _Oh fuck_ ” and Sherlock’s hands grasping at his jaw to reconnect their mouths in a deep, messy kiss.

They were both a bit wobbly on their feet when they eventually came up again for air. John was absolutely captivated by the shine of saliva on Sherlock’s parted lips.

“John, let’s push the beds together,” Sherlock rasped.

John grinned, giggling. “1950s romance at its finest,” he commented as they went over to John’s bed and shoved it across to Sherlock’s. The mattresses, headboards, and footboards fused together with an odd _schlup_ sound. This seemed to set John off again, and soon Sherlock was giggling along with him as he pulled off his coat and jacket and tossed them over the back of an armchair. John reached for him as they toed off their shoes, sliding a hand around to the small of Sherlock’s back and using the other to guide their mouths back together.

It was fairly easy to topple Sherlock over onto the bed with a small nudge. The man went down without protest, a pink flush high in his chiselled cheekbones. John stood over him a moment, marvelling at the picture in front of him—Sherlock resting back and slowly unbuttoning his shirt with one hand, breathing hard, a trapped erection blindingly obvious in his trousers, pupil-blown eyes locked on John. John felt a quivering curl of desire untangle in his stomach and flood to his cock, and the confines of his trousers were suddenly far too constrictive. Sherlock wet his lips.

“Oh my god,” John breathed, frantically fumbling at his flies and zip. “God, I’ve never—never seen you like this before. Jesus.” He shoved his trousers down and nearly tripped getting out of them.

Sherlock chuckled breathlessly, which turned into an outright snicker as John got his arms trapped in the jumper he was hastily struggling to take off. “I’ve never felt like this,” he said quietly, just as John freed himself of the jumper.

For some reason, this tripped a small silent warning light in John’s subconscious, giving him pause. But Sherlock was looking at him with that burn in his eyes that John was rapidly becoming addicted to and he’d just unbuttoned the last button and, god, John needed to kiss that skin.

He dove down and peeled back the folds of Sherlock’s shirt, mouthing at the sharp angle of his collarbone. Sherlock gasped softly, hands coming up to clutch at John’s shoulders and snake into his hair. John smeared his tongue down Sherlock’s chest, tasting salt and skin, lingering for a moment over a pebbled nipple and brushing his lips gently over it. Sherlock made a choked noise, and John looked up to see his jaw thrown back and him biting his lower lip.

“All right?” John murmured.

“Yes,” Sherlock puffed, looking down sharply. “You’re wearing too many clothes,” he stated, tugging pointedly at John’s button-up shirt.

“Mm, so’re you,” John retorted, leaning his weight on one hand and using the other to smooth a hand over the front of Sherlock’s trousers.

Sherlock practically convulsed and made a wordless, caterwauling sort of noise, his chest fluttering. “Oh god, John, don’t _tease_ ,” he panted, suddenly surging up and decimating John’s shirt with one fatal rip.

John was fairly certain all the blood in his brain just up and left, because he’d instantly become a bit lightheaded. He was even more certain when Sherlock smashed their mouths together and bodily pulled him down on top of him, hooking a leg over John’s hip and thrusting his erection against John’s. John’s eyes briefly rolled back and he frotted desperately against that still-clothed length a few times, with Sherlock’s tongue utterly dominating his mouth. Someone was moaning shamelessly and loudly—likely both of them.

“God, Sherlock,” he groaned as soon as he had the chance. “Can you— _oh FUCK, Jesus_ —can you hang on, a moment, to get our kits off?”

Sherlock reluctantly loosened his hold on John, and John shakily slid off to the side and sat up. He removed the remnants of his poor shirt and slipped off his socks and pants, breathing a sigh of relief as his cock bobbed free, red and hard as a rock. He looked over to watch Sherlock sit up and toss his own shirt somewhere as he shuffled out of his trousers and pants in one go, simply dropping the remaining articles over the side of the bed.

Sherlock made an oddly high-pitched noise when his own cock was finally freed, and John couldn’t blame him—there was a faint zipper indentation on it, which couldn’t have been comfortable. Otherwise, his cock was a thing of beauty nestled in a dark mesh of pubic hair—it was dusky pink, matching the colour of his lips, and gloriously long, with the head already shiny with pre-come and tapping wetly at a point just below his bellybutton whenever he breathed out. John’s mouth watered.

He looked up into Sherlock’s eyes.

Surprisingly, he found an unusual bashfulness glimmering there, underscored by the red in his cheeks, as Sherlock briefly glanced down then back up.

“All right?” John asked, feeling caution biting at him.

“Um, yes,” Sherlock replied. “Just a bit, ah—” His eyes flickered from side to side, as though searching for the word. “Whelmed.”

“It’s too much for you,” John said, worry welling up.

“No no no,” Sherlock said with a smile, reaching forward and caressing at John’s chest, sweeping a hand over the scar on his shoulder and up and around his neck. “I’m not _over_ whelmed. Merely…whelmed.” His smile did an odd thing, where it briefly stretched wider and then was sucked behind his teeth nervously. He blinked a number of times. “It’s just…you’re the first,” he admitted, with a bit of a self-conscious chuckle.

The warning alarm in John’s mind started blaring. “The first man?” he asked hopefully.

“The first, uh, first,” Sherlock said. He rubbed at John’s neck fussily yet soothingly. “…Surprise?” he added.

It was John’s worst fears confirmed. He breathed in and exhaled slowly. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, um, well, you’re my first man, so. Um. Just…putting that out there.”

“Oh, I knew that,” Sherlock said offhandedly, still rubbing at John’s neck with a thumb.

Because of course he already knew that. Or deduced it. Probably the latter.

“Right,” John said. “Right, so…we don’t have any of the usual things that go with this, so, er, it won’t be much. So don’t expect too much,” he advised.

The lingering nervousness in Sherlock’s expression evaporated as soon as he’d said that. It was replaced with that smoulder John was probably not ever going to get used to. “I assure you, John, we were doing _just fine_ ,” he rumbled, pulling John back in for a quick, affectionate smooch.

 _I should’ve seen the signs_ , John berated himself, which caused Sherlock to snort and break the kiss to say, “What does it matter, John?”

“Nothing! Nothing, of course, just—you know, tell me if you want to stop, or if anything doesn’t feel right, or—”

“I most assuredly _shall_ , John, you know I always speak my mind,” Sherlock retorted, smoothing another hand down John’s side, over his hip, and squeezing at a buttock.

A frisson ran through John at the caress. “Good,” he murmured, as Sherlock leant forward and sucked just below his ear, his violinist-callused hands running leisurely all over John’s back, dipping down to caress the top of his arse, then curving around his thighs. Without any sense of hesitation at all, one of his hands stroked at John’s cock, which had fallen somewhat as they’d talked. John gasped at the warm, somewhat sweaty feel of Sherlock’s hand on him, his eyes falling shut as Sherlock continued to stroke him evenly, and all at once he felt Sherlock’s tongue on his lips, and he easily let him in. Sherlock was gently pushing him backwards against the mattress, and soon John felt his head falling against a pillow as Sherlock magically managed to keep on snogging him and slowly toss him off.

John was certain his heart hadn’t stopped racing since…ever? God, he couldn’t even remember what he’d eaten that day, let alone when he’d been _calm_. But Sherlock suddenly did this genius twist thing with his hand on an upstroke, and John’s breath hitched. He could still taste the peppermint lingering on Sherlock’s tongue as he kissed him, and god, but everything felt _fantastic_ …

But wait. _Christ._ This was Sherlock’s first time _ever_ , he shouldn’t—yeah, no, bit not good, making the virgin do all the work, bit not good, Sherlock deserved a phenomenal first time, and here John was just lying back like a lazy sod. Better fix that.

He gently pulled Sherlock’s hand away from his cock and, using a technique he’d long since perfected, he flipped them over on the bed. Sherlock looked up at him with a puzzled expression, his eyebrows crinkled.

“Did I do it wrong?” he asked, pouting a little.

“No, you didn’t,” John reassured, kissing him softly. “Just want you to relax and enjoy yourself.”

“I _was_ ,” Sherlock retorted, frowning. “And so were you.” His eyes narrowed. “Something’s wrong.”

Those two words had an instantaneous, involuntary effect on John—as though a bucket of cold water had been dumped over him. The words were spilling out of him before he could even consciously think of them: “Oh god, um, sorry, we can stop if you like, or try something different, whatever you like, it’s all fine, really, all fine.”

Sherlock was apparently an extremely fast learner, because John suddenly found himself flipped onto his back with Sherlock gently pinning him in place, his hands over John’s wrists and his knees on either side of John’s hips. He was staring at John with the sharp gleam of the Deduction Stare.

“Does this have to do with my virginal status?” he asked bluntly.

“No, of course not!” John protested. “It’s perfectly fine, honest. I just want your first time to be—”

“Perfect?” Sherlock interrupted, with a raised brow.

“Yes, well, you deserve a good time, and I just want to be sure—” John blathered.

“Shut up,” Sherlock said crisply, placing a hand over John’s mouth for good measure. His eyes scanned over John’s face, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. “You do realise sex is imperfect, don’t you?” he asked, lifting his hand from John’s mouth.

“Well, yeah, generally, but your first time—” John started, only for Sherlock’s hand to close over his mouth again.

“Ever the romantic,” Sherlock muttered, eyes still flitting over John’s face, but then suddenly his eyebrows lifted and his eyes widened. “ _Oh,_ ” he said. “I see. _Your_ first time was terrible, wasn’t it? And, considering the extremity of your reaction in this circumstance, your situation was similar to mine— _she_ was the experienced one, wasn’t she? And you’re trying to compensate for that, told yourself you’d never push the other person into what wasn’t wanted or didn’t feel right. Oh, John, I should’ve deduced that a long time ago,” Sherlock concluded with a sigh, removing his hand again from John’s mouth. “It’s always _something_ ,” he muttered to himself.

John sighed. “Yeah, got it one. As usual,” he admitted. He paused, then went on, “I was just a kid, really, hadn’t even had a first real girlfriend yet— _she_ certainly didn’t have that honour, anyway. Told me afterwards that she was just getting back at her ex for cheating on her, nothing personal. My mates egged me on into doing it.”

“You’ve always had terrible judgement in friends,” Sherlock commented idly.

John’s eyebrows furrowed. “What about you?”

“I’m a terrible friend.”

John quirked a tiny smile. “You’re honest, though.”

Sherlock snorted. “Not always.”

John pressed his free hand to Sherlock’s cheek. “When it counts, you are.”

“Not even then, John,” Sherlock replied.

“Stop contradicting me, you arse,” John finally said, leaning up and pressing a small kiss to his lips. “If I say you’re amazing, you’re amazing.”

Sherlock allowed himself to be kissed chastely a second time, then said, “I’m taking it by the state of your penis that we’re not having sex tonight.”

John didn’t even need to look down to know he was flaccid. He sighed heavily and said, “I’m sorry.”

Sherlock shrugged and rolled off to the side, so they both lay on their backs next to each other. “It’s fine, John. It’s your first time, too, after all.”

John turned his head to watch Sherlock and reached out to card his fingers through Sherlock’s curls. “But this was supposed to be _our_ night,” he said sadly. He glanced down at Sherlock’s cock, which had fallen a bit but still had a lingering tumescence in it. He trailed his hand towards Sherlock’s hip. “Do you want me to—?” he started, not getting a chance to finish as Sherlock snagged his hand and dragged it up to his mouth, kissing it briefly.

“No. As you said, John, this is supposed to be _ours_. I wouldn’t have it otherwise.” Sherlock closed his eyes and lightly pressed his lips against John’s fingertips. “And this _is_ ours,” he added quietly. “It’s just you and me, right now, for ourselves. A year ago, I wouldn’t’ve been able to ask for even that much.”

John immediately felt guilty, because truly, he did want to give this man everything he wanted. He wanted Sherlock to be happy. It was a plain and simple wish, but in that instant it filled up his every thought.

Sherlock exhaled slowly and stated, “However, if my penis remains distended for more than four hours, I will call upon you to do something about it.”

John promptly burst out laughing and was quickly joined in by Sherlock’s low and knowing chuckle.

“Oh god, I—I _do_ hope you’re kidding about that, because I’d feel like a tit for laughing otherwise,” John said, once he’d managed to form words again.

“I was,” Sherlock assured him, smiling.

“Thank Christ! I don’t know what we’d do if the both of us had erectile issues.”

“Mm,” Sherlock agreed, as he none-too-subtly started pulling John over and propping John’s head on top of his chest, carding his long fingers through John’s hair.

John found it rather novel, being coddled for once. He could listen to the steady thump of Sherlock’s heart in his chest and the rush of air in and out of his lungs, all the while being wrapped up in warmth and soothed by the rhythmic stroking of fingers through his hair.

“However, affecting to have such a condition has come in handy on occasion,” Sherlock remarked idly.

“Yeah?” John murmured. “I don’t remember hearing anything about that.”

“Oh, it was before you, John,” Sherlock said, unceasingly stroking John’s head even as he finagled the bedclothes to actually cover them. “There was a case I had at the Royal Opera House once. A prima ballerina was quite keen on having me assist her in conceiving a child. For some reason, my lack of interest failed to dissuade her.”

John smiled against his chest. “Do I have to take names?” he mumbled.

Sherlock paused in stroking his head. “That won’t be necessary.”

“I’m joking.”

“Ah,” Sherlock said, resuming. “Pity.”

John sighed and nuzzled into his chest, hearing Sherlock’s heart suddenly skip. “Tell me about the case,” he murmured.

“Three years ago, on the night before Christmas, the dancer playing the Nutcracker was murdered right before the ballet was about to start,” Sherlock began, and John listened to him recount the harrowing tale of intra-company rivalries, love affairs, and mouse kings, all while he listened to his lover’s heartbeat steadily thumping away in the night, curled up into his warmth and feeling the vibrations in his chest as he spoke.

When John fell asleep soon after, he spent the night dreaming of sugar plum fairies twirling in the snow—and every one of them had Sherlock’s face and asked him to dance.

 

* * *

[21] Hey readers, by chance, have you ever wondered how to make candy canes?  Well...I hadn't until I needed to know how to make them for this chapter, but maybe you _do_ wonder!  I recommend checking out [this vid](http://youtu.be/ZKnrRIsJMRE) to see how you make homemade candy canes; it looks rather simple, really.  (I promise, it's interesting; ignore the cheesy opening title cards!)  As for interesting facts behind candy canes themselves, you may have heard legends about them being made by nuns or something and made in the shape of canes to remind children of the shepherds who visited Jesus in the Nativity and...those legends are all lies.  All of them.  Every single one.  I have checked.  The very first written account of candy canes being remotely related to Christmas stuff is in[ this children's book](http://books.google.ca/books?id=sP0BAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22the%20nursery%22%20tree%20canes&pg=PA18#v=onepage&q&f=false) published in 1874 (because most things the Western world associates with Christmas traditions today actually originates from the Victorian period) and all the legends and stuff you've heard about them come _after_ this, so...who really knows why we have candy canes at Christmas?  It seems to have just sort of...happened.  :P


	16. Christmas Eve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N** : Ack, sorry this is a day late coming. Yesterday I was celebrating my friend's anniversary and I totally forgot what day of the week it was!

Waking up was a bit of a treasure. Sometime in the night they’d managed to switch positions—John was now on his back with Sherlock half-draped on top of him, with Sherlock’s face tucked into his neck and breathing hotly against his skin. John couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up in someone’s arms, let alone in the arms of someone he wholeheartedly adored. He idly drew his fingers through the white tangled mess of Sherlock’s hair and hummed contentedly.

Sherlock sighed through his nose and mumbled, “You’re awake.”

“Mm,” John replied. “I hope you slept.”

“Wonderfully,” Sherlock answered, nuzzling at the underside of John’s jaw, then shifting his weight upwards to kiss him properly.

They didn’t stop kissing.

Perhaps it was simply because it was morning—or as morning as it could be at the North Pole during winter—and neither of them were entirely awake yet, so thinking was dimmed and the instinctual reach for warmth were at play, but it seemed to take next to no time for a matching set of morning wood to fully harden as their tongues twined lazily against one another. Sherlock shifted so that he was wholly on top of John, brushing their cocks against each other. John felt a shiver of desire travel up his spine at the contact and at the subsonic, muffled groan Sherlock emitted, and he thrust slightly upwards, sleepily pleased when Sherlock responded in kind.

“Good morning,” Sherlock rumbled once they finally broke the kiss. He shimmied downwards and sloppily mouthed at John’s neck, gradually moving his attentions to his chest.

John jumped a little at the feel of Sherlock’s tongue on his right nipple as it swirled around in a few languid circles. “Mmm, we have a thing today, don’t we?” he asked, petting at Sherlock’s head and down his neck.

“Later, John,” Sherlock replied. “It’s still early yet in New Zealand.” He dipped down and sucked at the exposed flesh below John’s sternum, and John twitched and smothered a laugh. Sherlock hummed, pleased, and trailed the tip of his tongue across John’s abdomen into the hollow of his navel, kissing wetly.

John was torn between having a giggling fit and groaning at the shivering tingle of sensation Sherlock was evoking as his tongue dipped, swirled, and licked across the surface of his sensitive skin. Both impulses seemed to be winning out, and he quivered and laughed and half-heartedly tugged at Sherlock’s hair as the man thoroughly explored his newfound interest in John’s belly, the tip of his chin occasionally bumping into John’s strained erection along the way.

After a time it occurred to John that the scene seemed remarkably familiar for some reason, and when it finally hit him why—it was a re-enactment of the start of his masturbation fantasy—he gasped and lifted his head to look down, wide-eyed.

Sherlock was staring directly at his face, and on making eye contact, grinned and took the head of John’s cock into his mouth.

“ _OH, GOD,_ ” John hollered, ridiculously loud, and threw his head back onto the pillow, eyes screwed shut, feeling Sherlock’s tongue laving at the slit and his hand firmly gripping and stroking at the base. John’s hands scrabbled at the mattress cover and settled on fisting into the pillow at his head, his chest heaving; he was distantly aware he was streaming a litany of profanity along the lines of “ _Oh FUCKING Jesus Christ_ ” in an embarrassingly high-pitched tone, but frankly the curl of Sherlock’s tongue around his cock and the wet heat of his mouth were the entire focal point of his concentration at the moment. God, it’d been _ages_ since he’d had a proper blowjob, and fucking hell there’d never been a more perfect mouth born for it than Sherlock’s, not ever, _Jesus Christ_.

He was going to come. Oh god, he was going to come in Sherlock’s mouth, really, really quickly. His hips were unconsciously trying to pump his cock down Sherlock’s throat if not for Sherlock’s spare hand at his left hip holding him down, and he had to stop before—“ _Stop_ ,” he squeaked, shoving the flat of his palm against Sherlock’s forehead. “ _Sher—Sherlock, oh god, stop,_ ” he croaked, relieved when Sherlock pulled off with a wet-sounding _pop_. John heaved for breath, trembling, waiting for that rising crest of white-edged pleasure to ebb down a bit.

“What—what’m I doing wrong?” Sherlock panted, voice so deep it could strike oil at any moment.

John risked lifting his head and looking down and felt a raw burst of desire at the panorama before him. Sherlock was resting his cheek on one of John’s thighs, mouth open and breathing hotly, white curls thoroughly in disarray, with two humongous pupils staring up at him; one of his hands was still squeezing tightly at John’s hip, but the other hand had clearly retreated down to his own cock, where it was making jerky, quick motions.

“Oh god, nothing,” John gasped at him, pulling at the hand on his hip. “Nothing, you brilliant thing. _Get the hell up here._ ”

Sherlock lurched upwards and crashed his mouth into John’s, their tongues uncoordinatedly groping at each other, breaths coming fast. John brought one hand to Sherlock’s arse and wrenched them together. He snuck the other hand between them, slotting their cocks alongside each other in a loose fist. Sherlock groaned with a total lack of abandon and juddered, immediately thrusting to a desperate rhythm that John quickly adjusted to as they panted into each other’s mouths.

The pre-come leaking out of both of them was smearing all over his hand and their stomachs, and Sherlock’s cock was rutting insistently against his own. The heat between their bodies was sweltering, sweat slickly gathering where their legs and chests and arms rubbed together, and John could smell the sharp, pungent tang of salt and aroused musk coming off of Sherlock in waves so strongly he could taste it, and Sherlock’s breaths against his mouth were half-forming John’s name, and _fuck_ it was going to happen now, it was going to happen _now, finally, **now** ,_ the wave of pleasure soaring dangerously high, cresting with white foam in the sun—

John came with a shout, shaking hard as he rode out the pulses of his orgasm spilling onto his belly, for a moment completely oblivious to sight and sound and only aware of the earthquake movement of the hot, beloved body undulating above him desperately. He pulled himself down from the high enough to register Sherlock calling his name in a rasping whisper—“ _John, John_ ”—and see the frantic, almost panicked look in Sherlock’s eyes as he pulled wildly at his own cock, his face bright, burning red.

“ _I’ve got you, I’ve got you,_ ” John whispered back at him, overtaking Sherlock’s grip on his erection and threading his other hand into the damp curls at Sherlock’s neck. “ _I’ve got you, love, come for me now, come._ ”

Sherlock came with a muted scream, eyes wide open and shocked, and John felt the hot splatter of his come spurting over his belly and the throb of his cock in his hand. Three seconds later, Sherlock collapsed on top of him, trembling violently, and John soothingly rubbed a hand down his wet back, whispering, “Breathe, love, I’ve got you.”

For a long moment, John just held him as they struggled to catch their breaths, slowly becoming conscious of the sticky-wet feeling of shared fluids all over them and the heady smell of sex surrounding them and not really giving a damn. Every now and then, Sherlock would produce a full-body shudder, and John just gave him a brief, reassuring squeeze, feeling Sherlock’s humid breaths starting to slow near his ear. God help him, John could feel that his mouth was stuck in a huge, goofy smile, and he abstractly thought it was a good thing Sherlock couldn’t see it at the moment otherwise he’d tease him for it.

Eventually, Sherlock rolled off him to lie on his back to the side, an arm flung over his eyes. John sent him a concerned look that he couldn’t see, and though every limb felt like it was made of Jell-O, he reached a hand over to tentatively touch the shield-arm over Sherlock’s eyes.

“Sherlock, you okay?”

He saw Sherlock nod, mouth still open and gulping air, though the arm stayed in place. Then, slowly, the arm slid off upwards, framing Sherlock’s head on the pillow. Sherlock turned his head to look at John.

His eyes were a shade John had never seen before—a dark, stunning purple that seemed to faintly glimmer, and John could’ve sworn he saw shining, dancing spots twirling in them. Sherlock grinned like the sun.

“Sherlock, you okay?” John repeated.

Sherlock shifted toward him and began fervently kissing at John’s face, reaching an arm across John’s chest in a warm embrace. It made John smile and chuckle momentarily, but he insisted, “Sherlock, please, say something.”

Sherlock pulled away slightly, still smiling, though his eyes had returned to their customary bluish-green miasma. “John, do you remember the first time you tasted an ice lolly?” he asked.

John furrowed his brow at him, lifting a hand to caress at the arm still resting across his chest. “No, I don’t think so,” he replied.

“I do. Or I do now—I could never remember the flavour, but I remember that for a week I refused to eat anything else, to my mind it was the epitome of culinary perfection: crisp, cold, sweeter than anything I’d ever had, a burst of juice, and it got on _everything_ , John, everything, it stained my mouth and my clothes and Mummy hated it but I _adored_ it. It was plum. I remember now. It was plum-flavoured.”

Immediately after this odd speech, Sherlock smothered John with a deep, adoring kiss that briefly made John go a bit light-headed at how achingly _intimate_ it was before he regretfully broke it off for air.

“So I take it you enjoyed that?” John said after catching his breath yet again.

“It’s the only thing I’ll want for a week,” Sherlock rumbled with a predatory glint in his eye.

John huffed a brief laugh even as the words struck a resonating chord of lust and pleased pride within him. “I’m not as young as I once was, Sherlock, a marathon like that would probably kill me,” he said, sitting up with a stretch.

“Oh, that’s exactly how I’d want to kill you, John,” Sherlock replied, grin widening.

John chuckled. “Well, my demise will have to wait. It’s Christmas Eve Day and we need to get ready.” He started to slide off the bed.

Sherlock grunted in annoyance and muttered, “We’ll have Boxing Day to ourselves at least.” Then he snagged John’s arm just as he was about to stand up. John looked back at him, finding a trace of timid uncertainty in Sherlock’s eyes. “John, did you…enjoy it?” he asked quietly.

John raised an eyebrow. “You can’t deduce the answer yourself?” He waved a hand casually at his come-painted front and smiled. “I think the evidence is pretty telling.”

Sherlock beamed, and John was briefly amazed that in spite of the white hair, the sheer joy in that smile was enough to make Sherlock look younger than his thirty-some-odd years.

“Come on,” John said, nodding his head in the direction of the bathroom door. “We need a wash. And let’s try not to get distracted while we’re in there; I’m sure your mother is wondering what’s taking us so bloody long already.”

“I’m sure she’s not,” Sherlock retorted, nevertheless getting up on wobbly legs to follow John into the bath.  

***

Despite their best intentions to not get distracted in the bath, they were distracted anyway. In hindsight, John concluded that it would’ve been hard to avoid, what with all the soaping each other and wet proximity and the newfound euphoria of oxytocin coursing through their veins. But at least they were both finally clean and dressed and happy, and Sherlock looked extra charming in the dark green shirt and blood-red scarf he was wearing underneath the black expanse of the winterized Belstaff, all of which seemed to set off the preternatural lightness in his face and eyes and hair as though he were some kind of enchanted candle, a dark festive wick holding up the brilliant flame of his genius.

There was no two ways about it. John was recklessly smitten with the man he had on his arm, and god did he ever feel lucky that the man on his arm was smitten back. As they proceeded down the hallway together, John was faintly aware of the sound of cheerful elfish singing coming from the atrium in some language he couldn’t recognise, but he was more aware of the fact that he and Sherlock were stepping in time with the tap of the peppermint staff, perfectly in sync.

“Good morning,” Sherlock said to his mother on their entering the breakfast room.

She looked up at them with a warm smile. “Help yourselves,” she said simply, waving an arm to the food-laden counter.

When they’d sat down to the table with their plates, Sherlock ate like a horse. John was rather impressed—although Sherlock usually had periods where he caught up on case-related fasting by gorging on greasy take-away, it was rare to actually see him inhaling a normal breakfast with vigour. Though John guessed it had probably been quite some time since he’d eaten a full meal, and they _had_ skipped out on dinner yesterday.

Sherlock suddenly looked up from his plate and across the table with a concerned expression. “Mummy, what’s wrong?”

John started, realising he’d been staring dreamily at Sherlock and blindly eating from his plate the whole time, and looked over to Mrs. Holmes.

She was weeping silently, perfectly still, but with a tiny red-lipped smile in place and her eyes a stunning, watery blue that reminded John sharply of Sherlock, though her hair remained a frigid white. “Oh, Sherlock,” she said with a sigh, brushing away the tear streaks on her cheeks with an elegant hand. “Nothing is wrong. But today, you look so like your father.” She reached a hand across the table, which Sherlock immediately took a hold of as he continued gazing at her with concern. “You resemble him most when you are happy, my son. I am pleased to see that side of yours more often; for too long when I’ve seen you, I’ve been seeing too much of me.”

John felt a small, saddened pang at ‘ _too much of me_ ’—because of course she was depressed; the holidays were never easy on the widowed, and Christmas would be harder on her than most considering its significance in her life, though her taciturn and controlled nature would let her disguise it better. But the depressed had trouble acknowledging their own merits, and in Mrs. Holmes John had come to know where Sherlock got his brilliance and elegance from, and he’d come to easily befriend a surprisingly welcoming if reserved soul, one that offered assistance without being asked and didn’t expect to be thanked.

He reached over and placed a hand on her wrist. “Well, lucky for me,” he began, gazing at her with a soft smile. “I love him just as much when he acts like _you_ as I do when he looks like his dad. Couldn’t ask for a lovelier set of models.”

She burbled a surprised little laugh, teeth showing through her smile. John half-feared a retaliatory kick from Sherlock for that one, but when he glanced over, Sherlock was giving him a small smile and a tiny nod of approval.

“You have found a good one, Sherlock,” she stated, a faint golden glint appearing in her hair along with roses in her cheeks.

“I have,” Sherlock agreed, sending a wider smile in John’s direction.

All three hands stayed joined together atop the table a moment more, then slowly drifted back to their utensils.

“Oh, but whatever shall we do with your brother, Sherlock?” Mummy Holmes asked with a sigh. “He has yet to bring me any charming friends.”

“I’ll get him a goldfish,” Sherlock replied with a smirk, then bit into his toast. 

***

Immediately after breakfast, they proceeded to the gift-sorting room, where an enormous stack of glossy-papered presents and treat bags and socks were lined on both sides of the fireplace. John let out a low whistle. It was at least triple the amount of presents St. Nicholas Day had had, if not more.

“I’m almost afraid of what the sleigh looks like,” John said.

Sherlock made a noncommittal noise and said, “It’ll be nonstop from here on out. Twenty-eight hours is the average—might take longer if there are any snags.”

John exhaled and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Christ. It’s a good thing your _cases_ are usually like this.”

Sherlock smirked and swept toward the metal pot, wasting no time dumping the contents into the low flame, which suddenly surged up. “Well then, we haven’t time to squander. Come on, John,” he said, tucking the first gift under his arm and stepping through.

John had two extra presents shoved into his arms by Mummy Holmes, and off he went.

It was long, rapid work, about as gruelling as John imagined a triathlon would be, which is what he’d been expecting. Though John _knew_ that the pile must be dwindling, he’d look to the other side of the room and still see the massive stockpile there waiting for them and feel overwhelmed. Luckily, Mummy ensured that they paused for water breaks right when John thought he might keel over, and John was both relieved and captivated as he watched Sherlock chug down a tall glass of ice water in four seconds flat before dashing off and leaving John to hurriedly down the rest of his own glass and scramble after him.

There weren’t too many snags—every now and then someone (usually an adult) would catch a glimpse of them rushing back into the fireplace out of the corner of their eye, but those incidents weren’t anything to worry about. On one memorable occasion they entered a living room somewhere to discover a little old grandfather asleep in a chair by the fire, and they’d skirted around him as quietly as they could only for him to suddenly start awake, give them the stink eye, and mutter something in a language John couldn’t decipher before going back to sleep.

“What’d he say?” John asked when they passed into the gift-sorting room.

“He said I looked too young for the job and ought to have grown whiskers,” Sherlock replied archly, clearly a bit put-out that his aura of coolness and authority had been reduced to an unimpressive ‘dern whippersnapper’ status. John tried not to laugh.

There were at least two other incidents that stuck out to John in particular. One was in their fourth hour somewhere in France: they’d entered into a dark house, where presumably everyone was asleep. John had been setting a curiously tiny box by a Nativity scene as Sherlock carried over a much larger wrapped box to put near a modest-looking Christmas tree.[22]  Just as Sherlock was walking back, he tripped over something and suddenly had a basket drop onto his head, followed by a large fishing net.

The lights in the room flickered on, and a spectacled seven-year-old boy triumphantly emerged from behind a sofa.

“ _Père Noël, je t’attrape!_ ” the boy declared, crossing his arms and grinning. “ _Donne-moi mon chiot et je te libérera!_ ”

John stared between them with wide eyes, not entirely sure what he should say or do. Should he laugh or try to help disentangle Sherlock from the fishing net draped around him?

Luckily, Sherlock seemed to know exactly what to do, as he ripped off the net and the basket in one fell swoop and glowered down at the boy. John got the impression that Sherlock was somehow getting taller as his hair instantly changed to the colour of coal and his eyes took on a reddish hue. Sherlock grinned widely, and every tooth was pointed.

“ _ **Je ne suis pas Père Noël, JE SUIS PÈRE FOUETTARD!**_ ” he thundered, and from god-knows-where pulled out a riding crop and snapped the end into the open palm of his other hand.[23]  He took a step toward the wide-eyed child.

The boy screamed bloody murder and fled, footsteps clattering up an unseen set of stairs.

John gawped. “What the bloody hell?” he stated, as Sherlock let out a deep breath and came down in size. Sherlock casually ruffled a hand through his hair, which turned it back to snowy white. “Where did you get that?!” John continued, because riding crops don’t just happen like sudden hair and eye colour changes, unless they do just happen in which case fuck everything he was giving up.

“I’ve always had the riding crop, John; it’s part of the costume. You just didn’t notice,” Sherlock replied, then he sent John a scrutinising look, a small smile slowly curling his lip.

All at once, Sherlock was standing in front of John, grinning carnivorously through pointed teeth and ember-red eyes. He glided the end of the riding crop across John’s cheek gently. “ _ **Interesting**_ ,” he rumbled.

John didn’t get very far in processing the instantaneous, paralysing magnetism he felt in the presence of…whatever Christmas persona Sherlock was being at the moment…because the lights in the hallway flicked on and several sets of footsteps were rapidly coming down the stairs. Sherlock scowled and muttered “Another time,” pulling John with him through the fire.

“You were delayed—what happened?” Mummy Holmes asked them as they stepped back into the gift-sorting room.

“The usual—an overly ambitious child attempting to bribe a puppy out of me with a flimsy net. Unfortunately for him, he’s getting a little sister instead,” Sherlock answered with a smirk, clipping the crop back onto his belt nonchalantly.

John tried not to stare. He was _certain_ he’d never seen the crop before—at least not while they’d been here—but maybe it really _had_ been there all along? It did sort of blend in—dark-coloured material against dark-coloured material and all. He was also self-aware enough to realise he was fixating on this rather insignificant question in order to avoid thinking such unhelpful things as ‘ _it is entirely unfair that Sherlock pulls off sexy French demon so well._ ’

“It’s not really a demon in France,” Sherlock stated out of nowhere, placing a box in John’s arms. “It’s more so in the Alps. But I think I’m better at demon than scruffy old man, don’t you?” he continued, sending John a wink.

“You _prefer_ being the demon, you drama queen,” John retorted, not exactly disagreeing.

Sherlock seemed to take the statement as a compliment, and they’d continued on.

The other instance that stuck out during the hours they wiled away running in and out of the fire happened when they were nearing the long-awaited end of the pile. They’d gathered up four roughly equal-sized presents and stepped through the portal only to find that there was a booming party going on, adults mulling around everywhere holding wine glasses, loudly laughing and talking and sort-of dancing to the roar of Christmas music blasting through speakers.[24]  Miraculously, their sudden appearance through the fire somehow went unnoticed, stuffed as the room was with people—that is, until a high-pitched American voice screeched “Todd!!!” and John found himself suddenly being kissed by a strange, drunk woman who twined her arms around his neck.

John was stunned, and for a moment, he was completely incapable of moving or reacting at all. Luckily, Sherlock beat him to it by firmly pulling the woman off of him.

“Sorry, Clarice, but that one’s actually mine,” Sherlock told her with a strained grimace of a smile and a terrifyingly perfect Standard American accent.

Clarice blinked at Sherlock, then at John, then burst into a fit of giggles. “Oh my god, I’m _so_ sorry,” she said, apologetically touching John’s arm. “You look JUST like my Todd—dunno where he’s got to, he’s gone off somewhere. Say…who are you two again?” she said, looking between them.

John suddenly had Sherlock’s arm clenched around his waist. “Steve and John, your new neighbours down the street—and I think I saw Todd heading off upstairs. You know how he is,” Sherlock said knowingly.

“Pft, yeah, shy as a clam, I should’ve guessed he went to hide. Anyway, nice meeting you finally!” she said, drifting away with a bit of an unsteady sway in her step.

Sherlock carelessly dumped the presents into a chair and dragged John back into the fire. John found himself being aggressively kissed before they’d even reached the other side, and he stumbled into the gift-sorting room with Sherlock’s mouth still locked on his, grasping at Sherlock’s arms to stop from completely losing his balance.

“Son, I’m afraid you are celebrating prematurely,” Mummy Holmes intoned. “There is still much left to deliver.”

Sherlock pulled off briefly to state, “John got _American_ on him. Damn, missed a spot,” before he dove back down tongue-first.

John really couldn’t decide whether being overwhelmingly mortified or turned on was the right way to go, so he sort of just let Sherlock inappropriately snog him in front of his own mother until Detective Christmas was satisfied. When Sherlock drew away, his face was scrunched in pure disgust, tongue sticking out.

“ _Lipstick,_ ” he snarled, like it was the foulest thing he’d ever tasted—which was saying a lot, especially since Sherlock tasted _everything_ , including poison on occasion. “Lipstick and cheap wine,” he growled, wiping a sleeve across his mouth and moving away to get the next gift in the queue.

John took a moment to catch his breath, shake his head, and wipe a sleeve across his own mouth, then followed. He sent an apologetic glance to Mrs. Holmes as he passed by, and they’d finished delivering the rest of the presents in the gift room without any trouble, though John could still feel the aftermath of Sherlock’s mouth against his own…and he found himself craving the idea of more, the thought that when Christmas was all over they could return to their little room and pick up right where they left off…

He felt a mug of coffee being insinuated into his hands, and he blinked back to attention and looked up at Mrs. Holmes, who had the side of her lip twitched up in amusement.

“Ta, Mum,” John murmured, sipping at the steaming mug. It tasted like heaven. “God, I needed that,” he added, feeling the first spike of caffeine jolt through his system. He looked over to Sherlock and saw him guzzling down his own coffee seemingly without a care for the temperature and with a bit of a wild-eyed expression in his face. He’d probably needed it just as badly, if not more so.

Now that they were taking a bit of a breather, John realised he was shaking with hunger and had to take a piss pretty badly. He excused himself and found the loos, and when he came back, he nearly wept at the sight of a platter of mini-quiches and muffins. Sherlock was already inhaling a cranberry-orange muffin drizzled in honey glaze. John dove for a quiche and groaned at the rich cheesy eggy bacony protein goodness on his tongue.

“Eat quickly,” Mummy advised them, curiously not eating anything herself. “The sleigh delivery will take four times as long.”

“Time is it?” John mumbled through another mouthful of quiche, not bothering to check his own watch.

“Six, by Greenwich time,” Mummy replied.

John groaned. “We’ve been at this for seven hours!”

“Right on schedule,” Sherlock rumbled next to him, licking his fingers clean.

John scrubbed a hand over his eyes and sighed heavily. “God help us,” he said simply, then reached for a muffin.

Sherlock made an agreeing noise and muttered something under his breath about the world being overdue an Oliver Cromwell.[25]

John raised an eyebrow and thought, _You don’t know who our current Queen is, yet you know who **Oliver Cromwell** is._

“Everyone knows who Oliver Cromwell is, John,” Sherlock replied.

“ _Súka,_ ” Mummy spat.

“May he have hiccups in his sleep!” called an elf somewhere in the hallway.

“May he step on Legos wherever he turns!” called another, and the chorus of curses and epithets was soon ringing through the corridors.

Sherlock was smirking. “I’m sure he wasn’t all that bad,” he said.

“ _Kotenok,_ ” Mummy said sternly.

“You can’t deny that it would certainly make the workload easier,” Sherlock replied.

Mummy simply sighed and folded her arms. John smiled quietly and sipped at his coffee, content not to take sides this time.

After their abbreviated supper, John followed Sherlock and Mummy into the atrium and down a hallway marked with a giant red arrow. The elves were all out, lining the walls, cheering joyfully as they passed by, and John couldn’t help but smile at them—and he noted, out of the corner of his eye, that although Sherlock was rather ominously stalking down the hallway in time to the fierce tap of his weaponised candy staff, he was smiling just a touch, too.

This hallway, unlike all the others John had seen, didn’t end in a big, grand room of some kind. Instead, it ended in an immense door that was gathering heavy frost along its edges as it struggled to keep out the subarctic air, and it shone wetly from the melting caused by the heat of hundreds of warm bodies inside. More humbling than that, however, was the titanic sleigh set up in front of the door, which was designed to resemble a storm cloud and made with wood so dark it was black; it had swirls and billowing lumps protruding out of the wood and trailing convincingly behind the edge of the back compartment, where the presents were presumably stacked. John caught a glimpse of a red ribbon peeking out the top of the cloud-sleigh, confirming his suspicions. The reindeer were already harnessed in their places, stamping impatiently, though John noted that the glowing Rudolph was not in place.

“He’s still a bit too young,” Sherlock said out of nowhere by way of explanation. “We’re giving him another year to grow into the strength and endurance he needs to pull the sleigh around the world.”

“Oh,” John said, a tiny bit disappointed but, well, what could you do. A growing reindeer was a growing reindeer, genetically phosphorescent and magical or not.

Sherlock was waving him over eagerly to look at the driving seat. John obliged, looking in at the cosy-looking cushions, but Sherlock was pointing at a glass panel across the front. Behind the panel, there were fifteen individual pieces of curling, yellowing paper lined up in a row, each set on what looked like tiny rolodexes. Altogether, the papers read: 9 0° 0 0’ 0 0” N x x x° x x’ x x” X.

“Geographic coordinates,” John commented, raising his eyebrows.

“Yes—when the world finally figured out how to measure latitude and longitude, one of my ancestors undoubtedly decided that it would be much easier—and faster—to locate homes by inputting their geographic coordinates rather than scrambling around trying to find something vague like ‘small woodcutter’s cabin just shy of the Black Forest, roughly two miles north-by-northwest from the mill.’”

“You’re telling me Father Christmas had one of the first GPS systems,” John stated. Sherlock smiled. “Yeah, well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” John conceded with a sigh, smiling himself. He looked to the panel again and noted that there weren’t any buttons anywhere. “How do you input the coordinates?”

Sherlock grinned and tapped his own head. “All in here. It’s as simple as—” He slapped a hand over the glass panel, eyes glowing gold, and for a long moment John could hear the rapid whirl of ancient paper flipping through their rolodexes. “There, our itinerary is set for the evening.”

John gawked. “You just—okay,” he tried. Sherlock preened a little. “That’s…kind of terrifying,” John decided.

Sherlock pouted. “ _Really_ , John? I can ignite flame between my hands at will, and you choose to find my mental storage of _geographical coordinates_ terrifying?”

“It’s hundreds of thousands of coordinates!” John argued. “The human brain is not _made_ to remember that many sets of numbers at one time!”

Sherlock sighed and rolled his eyes, turning to his mother who was smiling in amusement. “Mother, how many digits of Pi have you memorised lately?”

“A hundred thousand and ten,” she replied.

John balked, staring in horrified awe between the two of them.

“I have an ongoing competition with Mr. Haraguchi,[26]” she added with a shrug. “Not that he is aware of it.”

John pinched his thumb and forefinger over the bridge of his nose, sighing. “I’m…surrounded. By supernatural geniuses.”

“It isn’t _supernatural_ , John, it’s enhanced neurochemistry,” Sherlock retorted with a scowl.

“Yeah, okay, keep saying that, Mr. Fire-fingers.”

“It behaves more like ionized plasma,” Sherlock muttered under his breath as his mother picked up a dark blue bundle from an elf and stepped towards John, holding up the overcoat he’d worn on St. Lucia’s Day.

“You will need to dress warmly,” she stated.

He huffed a little sigh and smiled, taking the coat from her and putting it on, followed by a scarf, ushanka, and mitts that were passed to her by a series of elves.

She then turned to Sherlock and held up a distinctive red floppy hat. Sherlock crinkled his nose at it.

“It is traditional, son.”

He rolled his eyes and snatched the hat from her, shoving it in a coat pocket. “I’m only wearing it when necessary,” he stated.

“I would like a picture of you in it before you depart,” she replied, tone brooking no arguments.

“Mummy, _please_ ,” Sherlock groaned at her. “Don’t you have _enough_ pictures of me in hats?”

She folded her arms, and they entered into an icy staring contest of wills. John, amused, decided to put an end to it by yanking the hat out of Sherlock’s pocket and shoving it on top of the detective’s head. Sherlock glared at him, his eyes screaming “ _Et tu, Brute?_ ” John put his arm around Sherlock’s waist and looked to Mrs. Holmes with a light smile as she held up her fingers to take a mental photograph.

“ _Spasibo_ , John,” she said, two blinks later. “You may leave now.”

“Yes, let’s,” Sherlock grumped, tossing the candy cane staff into the floor of the sleigh and stepping in. He ripped the hat off and shoved it back into his coat before sitting down and reaching for the knot of reins hooked over a wooden horn at the top of the panel. “Come on, John.”

John turned back to Mrs. Holmes with a smile and was mildly surprised to find her coming forward for a hug, which he easily accepted. His nose just barely surpassed her shoulder.

“Good luck to you both,” she said.

“Thanks, Mum,” he replied, patting her back once and then pulling away. He got into the seat beside Sherlock.

Then it hit him that he was _actually_ in Father Christmas’s sleigh, with all the reindeer lined up and stamping impatiently, at the North Pole, about to zip around the world and help Sherlock Holmes be one of the most beloved myths of childhood. And it wasn’t a dream. He chuckled and shook his head, then turned to Sherlock, who was giving him a warm, amused look.

“And Sherlock, do be careful,” Mummy added, with a motherly tone of voice that would be recognisable across any language.

Sherlock looked over John’s head with a confident smirk. “Nothing to worry about, Mummy dear. I’ve got my best man on the case with me and—yes, thank you, Sven—a coffee thermos large enough to break a window,” he said, passing said thermos over to John carelessly. “What could go wrong? Open the gate!”

With a sudden roar of cheering from the elves, the gate was pulled open, letting in a burst of arctic air that took the breath out of John’s lungs. John tightened his grip around the coffee thermos and pulled up a section of his scarf to cover his mouth, then turned to Mrs. Holmes to give her a final wave goodbye.

She was white as ice, with fear in her eyes.

“Mum?” John started to ask, but he had Sherlock’s mouth at his ear saying, “Bit of advice—don’t look down” and suddenly the sleigh surged forward onto the ice and was lifting up into the dancing streams of the aurora borealis. John yelped in surprise and dropped the (thankfully closed) thermos into his lap, instinctively clinging to Sherlock’s arm and the side of the sleigh as his senses took in the weightless feeling of take-off. Sherlock was laughing.

Once his heart stopped trying to leap out of his chest, John loosened his hold on both Sherlock’s arm and the sleigh, for a moment spellbound by the luminous beauty of the Northern Lights soaring across the star-speckled sky and the jumping muscles of the reindeer as they ran through the air. Comet was easy to pick out as he shimmered like a ghost among the herd, and John could hear a faint rumbling coming from Donner’s hooves and see occasional flashes of light from underneath Blitzen. Vixen was a slim, smaller shape up ahead, and Dasher’s antlers soared above all the others. Although Cupid, Dancer, and Prancer were harder to pick out on their own from this angle, he knew where they were in relation to the others. He cautiously looked over the side and—yes…yes, they were really _quite_ high up now, and John was suddenly reminded that there were no seatbelts on this thing, and he automatically shifted closer to Sherlock.

“I warned you not to look down,” Sherlock said, and John could hear the smirk in his words. “Though I’ve never taken you as one to have a fear of heights, John. You’ve been in helicopters before.”

“Helicopters have seatbelts,” John said, deciding to hell with his pride he was going to cling to Sherlock’s arm if he felt like it. “And I’m not afraid of heights, I’m afraid of falling from them.”

Sherlock chortled and put his arm around him, setting the knot of reins back on the horn over the panel. “That should be enough altitude for now,” he murmured to himself, hand squeezing John’s shoulder.

“Don’t you have to steer it?” John asked.

“It’s mostly auto-piloted,” Sherlock said, pointing at the horn holding the reins, which John now saw was slightly shifting left and right and forward and back, presumably steering them and maintaining altitude. “My job is mostly to make sure we don’t run into other aircraft or anything else and to adjust the altitude accordingly so we’re not detected. We can risk flying lower for now since we’re far above the treeline and it’s virtually uninhabited for several hundred kilometres. It’s easier on the reindeer—not to mention warmer.”

John had zoned out most of the explanation beyond “make sure we don’t run into other aircraft”; his initial surprise, wonder, and anxiety were slowly receding as he remembered the unexpected look of fear in Mrs. Holmes’s eyes.

“Sherlock, your mum—she looked really worried back there,” John said, apprehension welling up.

Sherlock shrugged. “She’s a mother. That’s what mothers _do_. You should’ve seen her on my first day of school.” He suddenly leant forward and kissed John solidly on the mouth, pulling John closer to him with the arm still secured across his shoulders. “We have some time before we reach Japan,” he said, breaking the kiss though he kept his face close, shielding John’s exposed skin from the wind. “About twenty minutes. I have an idea on how we might spend it.”

John grinned against him, worries evaporating. “Mm, sounds lovely. But don’t you think it might be better to keep our clothes on in this weather? Or to conserve our energy for breaking into houses around the whole bloody planet?”

“That doesn’t sound nearly as fun,” Sherlock rumbled.

“Oh, if you’re saying _that_ , I’m clearly not kissing you enough,” John retorted, lightly rubbing the tip of his nose against Sherlock’s.

“You should remedy that,” Sherlock purred.

Without further ado, John went about remedying that—he could hardly call himself Sherlock’s doctor if he didn’t, after all.  

***

They weren’t in Japan for very long—as Sherlock explained, they were just stopping by for the handful of children who truly believed in him, mostly foreigners and a few meagre Japanese Christians. John quickly discovered that his job was basically to hold the bag as Sherlock picked locks and windows and to be the lookout as they snuck into apartment complexes. Truth be told, it was hardly anything new for them. Though for some reason, he could smell fried chicken everywhere they went. Literally _everywhere_ they went.

“It’s Kentucky Fried Chicken,” Sherlock said at one point, picking up on John’s mental confusion.

“Okay, but _why?_ Why is it _everywhere?_ ”

Sherlock shrugged. “Tradition since the seventies. The stars of commercialism aligned, and thirty years later everyone pays twenty pounds for fast food chicken on Christmas.”[27]

John stared at him.

“It wasn’t _my_ idea,” Sherlock said. “It just sort of…happened.”

John sighed and shook his head, checked to see if the coast was clear, and they tramped up the stairs to the rooftop where the sleigh was waiting. Sherlock snuck a hand to the small of John’s back as they passed by the reindeer, and he murmured in his ear, “Though they have a far more interesting tradition associated with Christmas as well.”

“Mm? What’s that, then?” John asked, climbing back into the sleigh.

Sherlock sat down next to him and flicked the reins to make the deer take off. “It’s a holiday for lovers,” he said simply, though he had a touch of a leer pulling at his lips.

John snorted. “You’re making that up.”

Sherlock looked affronted. “I am not! I’ll swing us by one of the shopping districts, where they have the light displays. You’ll see them all holding hands, walking two-by-two. It’s like a little parade of snow umbrellas and sentiment.”[28]

“What happened to ‘not being seen’?” John replied, raising an eyebrow.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, fished out the red hat, and stuck it on his head. “Relax, John, they’ll just think we’re a cute promotional gimmick. Remember to smile and wave.” 

***

New Zealand was _hot_. They’d peeled off their winter gear, rolled up their sleeves, and even unbuttoned the first couple of buttons on their shirts, but running around in the warm, humid night breaking into houses and flats would make anyone work up a sweat. John was debating stripping down to his vest. He looked yearningly toward the beaches, where the lights and sounds of people merrily enjoying a late-night Christmas Eve barbeque could be heard over the roar of the surf. He could almost feel the ocean breeze on his face if he imagined hard enough.

“You may as well take it off, John,” Sherlock said with a smirk. “If anyone asks, we can pretend we’re drunk beachgoers.”

“Drunk beachgoers with _a reindeer sleigh,_ ” John retorted. “Yeah, I’m sure that will go over well.”

Sherlock sighed in disappointment. “You have a point,” he acceded, then unbuttoned the rest of his shirt anyway, though he kept it on. He looked like a damn Mills and Boon cover.

John somehow knew he’d done it with ulterior motives.

***

Sherlock winced as he picked up the peppermint staff that had been formerly residing at the bottom of the sleigh.

“Damn, it’s melting,” he rumbled.

“Then why’d you bring it, if you knew it was going to melt?” John asked as he shoved the designated presents into the carry sack from the top of the pile.

Sherlock pulled off the pink orb covering the knife and stood up. “We’re in Australia, John, almost everything here could kill us. I don’t take chances with Australia.”

With that, he dashed out of the sleigh, muttering the names of all the species of indigenous poisonous snakes like a mantra. 

***

Something odd happened in Mumbai. John had been admiring the glowing star lanterns in the street and the impressive Nativity displays in the windows of the homes they were set to visit while the families were at Midnight Mass. Sherlock had been rather easily picking the lock on their first mango-leaf-wreathed door.[29] Once he’d succeeded in getting it open, he’d casually said something incomprehensible.

“Sorry?” John said.

“Śubh Nātāḷ,” Sherlock repeated. “Merry Christmas in Marathi.”

John smiled and shook his head as they went in the house. “Show-off.”

“Well, you liked my French. I figured it couldn’t hurt to try some of the others.”

“Are you going to be doing this every time we’re in a new language demographic?” John retorted.

Sherlock looked thoughtful. “The thought hadn’t occurred. Yes, I shall try that.”

“That wasn’t a _suggestion_.”

“John, on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your arousal response to my Marathi?”

“No.”

“Let’s call that a four, then, shall we?”

***

South Africa was also hot. As they flew northwards to the next country, John took an unwelcome sip of still-steaming coffee from the thermos to wake him up. He decided he was too hot and exhausted to question why the coffee was still hot or how they hadn’t run out yet.

“I think I’m dying,” John stated, rubbing his eyes.

He suddenly had Sherlock’s fingertips on his jaw, and they delicately turned his face towards his partner. Sherlock inhaled deeply, pursed his lips, and then blew steadily over John’s face, his cheeks tinged blue. It was like being greeted by a gust of grocery store air conditioning after spending the entire summer outside.

“God, I love you,” John groaned, closing his eyes in bliss as the arctic air caressed his skin.

Soon thereafter, though, Sherlock released him and said, “You can nap a bit when we’re passing through the more Muslim countries. I should be able to handle those on my own.”

***

John was awakened from his cat-nap by Sherlock exclaiming, “God, yes, the Sahara! _Finally_.” He realised with a start that he was actually a bit chilly in the desert night, which Sherlock clearly heard him think because he then dragged John’s blue overcoat back around him like a blanket.

John sighed himself awake and reached for Sherlock, pressing a kiss to his cheek. Sherlock set the reins back on the horn and turned to John, giving him a fierce kiss that was decidedly more effective than caffeine.

“It’s been _ages_ since you’ve kissed me,” Sherlock complained when he finally let them break for air.

“Couldn’t be more than a few hours,” John rasped, his throat feeling dry.

“ _Ages,_ ” Sherlock insisted, kissing him again. “Here I am, showing you the world in a sleigh that exceeds our current understanding of physics, and you haven’t kissed me in _hours_. What sort of gratitude is that?”

“Right, sorry,” John said with a roll of his eyes, then set to work reducing Sherlock to a groaning mess with his mouth alone. Out of _gratitude,_ obviously.

“If this is— _oh,_ ” Sherlock started, cut off as John sucked at his neck. “If this is how you repay me for a third of the world, I can’t wait to show you the Pyramids.”

***

John forbade Sherlock from speaking German again. The world wasn’t ready for Sherlock’s German. Sherlock’s German sounded like a purring tiger, with a velvety roll of r’s and hypnotic v sounds, and John was fairly certain that infusing dripping sex appeal into the words “Frohe Weihnachten” was a crime against humanity as established by the United Nations.

Sherlock counted German as a ten.

***

England was a welcome sight, despite the dismal weather they were piloting through. It felt like they’d reached an invisible halfway marker of some kind—granted, they still had the ridiculous hugeness of the Americas to plough through, but progress was progress, and they were still managing to keep up with the world’s revolution speed and arriving approximately between 11:00pm and 4:00am in each country…somehow. John thought it best not to question how the reindeer could fly at least as fast as the world turns, if not faster. He just made sure that if any households left out carrots or vegetables of some kind that he brought them back for the puffing deer to keep their energy up.

John was not sure how Sherlock was still going, because personally he’d started to feel the ache in his back and his legs hours ago, but Sherlock kept moving like the wind. He wondered if it was something in the biscuits and various other sweets left out for them throughout the world.

Though truthfully, John was more amazed they hadn’t been caught yet. There’d hardly even been any near-misses. It was as unnerving as answering ‘C’ over and over in a multiple-choice exam, and maybe it was also a result of exhaustion, but his growing paranoia had been starting to make him jump at little noises they heard in the flats and houses they snuck into, which Sherlock would chidingly tell him was just the pipes or the house settling.

“But don’t you think it’s odd?” John asked him at one point. “That we haven’t been caught yet?”

“Not really,” Sherlock replied. “I’m not _inexperienced_ at breaking and entering, John, as well you know. When I still lived with my parents, I used to be recruited into assisting as you’re doing now.”

“But surely it would happen at least _once,_ right? When your dad was doing it?” John insisted.

“Oh, every now and again, but we always managed to get out of it all right.” Sherlock squinted at him. “Why are you worried, John? Even if we _were_ caught, I still have Lestrade’s badge on me, not to mention our connections with Scotland Yard.”

John didn’t want to say it was because he was remembering the look on Mrs. Holmes’s face as they’d left the North Pole. Instead he said, “I guess you’re right, it’s just…it feels like we’re tempting fate, with everything going right.”

Sherlock snorted a little laugh as he easily broke into the back door of the semidetached house they were standing outside of. “It’s no wonder my mother likes you; you’ve spoken like a true Russian.”

“Just being realistic,” John grumbled quietly, wiping his feet on the indoor mat before following Sherlock into the darkened living room with the presents. “With a project _this_ large, there’s bound to be complications somewhere,” he whispered.

Then he heard the unmistakable click of a gun safety catch being pulled off.

“Shit,” John said, freezing in place. Sherlock tensed beside him.

“All right, you two, drop the bag, hands on your heads,” a voice commanded.

John blinked.

Sherlock visibly relaxed with a sigh and said, “Bit rude of you, Graham, greeting a house guest like this.”

“ _Greg?_ ” John said, looking over to the entryway.

There was a brief fumbling sound, followed by the lights turning on. Sure enough, Greg Lestrade was standing there in a housecoat with a gun. He rolled his eyes on seeing them and put the safety back on. “For god’s sake,” Greg said, stuffing the gun in a housecoat pocket. He came into the room with his arms folded, looking rather annoyed. “What is this, then? Is this some kind of _tradition_ you’ve got going on, between you and your brother? Because it’s weird enough when he turns up.”

Sherlock’s eyebrows furrowed. “My brother? You’ve seen Mycroft here?”

Lestrade shrugged. “Yeah, couple of times. ‘Bout as charming as stale bread.” He cracked a smile. “Nice hair, Sherlock.” He raised an eyebrow at John’s blue fur overcoat. “Is all the fancy dress part of it, too?”

John didn’t have any idea what to do about any of this, and on glancing at Sherlock, it was clear he was just as puzzled.

“Yesss,” Sherlock said hesitantly, then a bit more firmly, “Yes. My brother and I…have an ongoing bet, isn’t that right, John?”

“Uh, yes,” John said. “They’re always going on about it every Christmas. To see who’s better at…stealth,” John invented on the spot. He turned to Sherlock with a glare. “You two and your bloody sibling rivalry. I don’t see why you keep dragging _me_ into it; I didn’t volunteer to be your score-keeper, you know.”

“Is that right?” Lestrade said, looking completely unconvinced. “Then why do you keep leaving my daughters extra presents in a fancy get-up?”

“Well, it’d be illegal if we _stole_ anything, obviously,” Sherlock deflected. “Not exactly in the spirit of Christmas, is it?”

“They won’t admit it, but they’re actually just being nice,” John added, rewarded with Sherlock glaring daggers at him. “It’s their way of saying thank you.”

“Oh, well that’s sweet,” Greg said with a grin. “Listen, though, maybe next time you can bring _me_ a new car?” he added jokingly.

“I’ll be sure to pass it on to my brother. It’s his turn next year,” Sherlock replied, walking out of the room. John quickly followed behind him after dropping off the two presents.

“Though you know, you _could_ find a better way to play Secret Santa than by breaking into my house,” Lestrade called after them. “That’s still illegal, no matter what you’re wearing or what clearance your brother has.”

“But not nearly as challenging,” Sherlock retorted, opening the door a crack, but not enough for Lestrade to see the sleigh waiting in the backyard. “Merry Christmas, Lestrade.”

“Yeah, same to you,” Lestrade said with a yawn. “And to you, John. Try to keep him out of trouble at least ‘til the New Year, yeah?”

“Can’t make any promises,” John replied with a smile. “See you next year, Greg.” He escaped out the door along with Sherlock, and they bolted to the sleigh, taking off in record time.

John looked over the side of the sleigh, watching the roof of Greg’s house until they were safely out of sight. He sat back again when they were above the clouds. “He took that strangely well,” he said.

“ _Too_ well,” Sherlock added. His brow was deeply furrowed. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

Sherlock looked over at him, his eyes bright and pale in the sharp focus of deduction. “That he’s seen Mycroft in the guise of Father Christmas more than once—twice, to be precise. If it were more than twice, he’d have been expecting a visitation. But Mycroft would not have allowed himself to be seen more than once unless he _wished_ it. What is he up to?” he rumbled darkly.

John pondered over it for a moment, laughably trying to decipher Mycroft’s possible motivations. From what he knew of Mycroft from the approximately two years of being semi-regularly abducted by him, it seemed odd that Mycroft would even let someone see him _once_ unless there was a good reason for it. “Why would he even let Greg find him once, though?” he asked.

“The first time doesn’t mean anything,” Sherlock said dismissively. “It’s generally good practice to let yourself get discovered once every now and then; it helps keep the legend alive, gives people new stories to tell their children. But _twice_ , that’s unheard of—that’s deliberate, not a mistake.”

“I don’t know, Sherlock. This _is_ your brother we’re talking about,” John protested. “I doubt he’d do anything unintentionally even _once_.”

Sherlock reluctantly nodded, still looking perplexed. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

John thought some more, and came upon an idea that was so alien to his perception of the world that he momentarily felt a touch of vertigo. “You don’t think—?” he started, still trying to wrap his mind around it.

Sherlock, apparently hearing his thoughts, snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous, John. If Lestrade were expecting a ‘friendly’ midnight visit from my brother, he’d hardly have greeted us with a loaded weapon, now, would he? And if Mycroft’s been doing the Obligation for five years, why only show himself _twice_ if that were his intention? What logical reasoning is there in that?”

“That’s true,” John said, feeling the world reorient itself again.

After a moment, Sherlock made a derisive sort of “bah” noise and said, “In any case, he’s not my problem right now. Are your irrational fears of disaster satisfied, John?”

“Yeah, for now,” John replied, surprised to realise that he actually meant it.

“Good, because I’ll need your full attention at this complex—they have a rather efficient security system,” Sherlock said, landing the sleigh on top of a multi-storey building.

They pressed on, redirecting their focus on delivery and staying alert.

***

John slept as they crossed the Atlantic. In fact, he was so exhausted Sherlock let him sleep through all of Brazil and the Caribbean, and he was reluctantly reawakened when they touched on the first house in Florida with Sherlock shoving the coffee thermos at him.

“Sorry, John, but I really _do_ need you now,” Sherlock said apologetically. “More advanced security systems.”

“You should’ve got me up sooner,” John replied, once he realised where they were. “I wouldn’t’ve minded seeing Barbados.”

Sherlock smiled briefly, tiredly. “Trust me, once you’ve seen one tropical island, you’ve literally seen all of them.”

***

Canada was _inhumanly_ cold. Really, truly, impossibly cold. John was saying this as a person who has spent the last few weeks residing at the North Pole. He suspected that the only place colder than either Canada or the North Pole was Antarctica; thank Christ no children lived there. Even _Sherlock_ was shaking, whether from cold or exhaustion, John couldn’t be sure, but when he’d asked, Sherlock had merely reminded John that he was currently _made_ to be able to withstand the weather and had snapped that he should stop worrying.

John didn’t stop worrying.

***

“Why is this continent _so damn big?_ ” Sherlock snarled, lowering their altitude below the trees as they passed through Yellowstone to give the reindeer a bit of an easier time of it. “Why are there so many _children?_ If their parents are going to _insist_ on spreading the myth, the least they could do is make my job easier and not set the house alarms, the paranoid idiots!”

“Why are you asking _me?_ ” John grumbled back. He knew Sherlock was just tiring, finally, and he knew his impatience was from that one tripped house alarm they’d set off in Montana, resulting in them nearly getting shot at. But damn it all, they were so close to being done; they just had to hold it together until they’d finally reached Alaska, then they could collapse and sleep for an entire day.

It was the final stretch of the marathon. They just _had_ to push through the pain.

John took a gulp of the gratefully forever-hot-and-endless coffee and offered the thermos to Sherlock, who chugged it. “C’mon,” John murmured, struggling to keep his eyes open. “We can do this. We’re nearly there. We can do it.”

Sherlock crashed his head against John’s shoulder, nuzzling his face into John’s neck. “Let’s skip Wyoming.”

“We can’t skip Wyoming.”

“There’s nothing IN Wyoming,” Sherlock complained. “Nobody will notice if we miss Wyoming!”

“We can’t skip Wyoming,” John repeated, though he desperately wanted to skip Wyoming.

“John, kiss me,” Sherlock muttered miserably. “My head aches.”

“Too much caffeine,” John diagnosed, tilting Sherlock’s jaw upwards to do as he asked.

“Too much _everything,_ ” Sherlock refuted, and he sounded so pitiful that John’s heart cracked and he kissed him softly.

Sherlock kissed him back with a desperation that threw John completely off-guard, as though he were being dragged under by a drowning man. Sherlock didn’t seem to care where his mouth or tongue landed, as long as it was in the vague vicinity of John’s face, and his hands clutched John’s shoulders tight enough that John was certain they were going to leave bruises.

Before John realised what was happening, he’d been pushed onto his back against the cushioned seat, with Sherlock kneeling on the seat and looming over him. For a moment, John was stricken by the otherworldly appearance of his lover—in the moonlight, with his breath billowing out in clouds in front of him, Sherlock’s head looked like it was a floating ball of light with sharp, swirling eyes, completely detached from the black body beneath it. John was entranced, and almost afraid.

“ _ **I need you** ,_” Sherlock said, and John could’ve sworn a subsonic echo reverberated in the mountains around them as Sherlock dove down and closed his mouth around John’s, tongue invading like fire.

“Mm! Mm, Sher—ah!” John managed to gasp in the pops for air between their mouths, giving a full-body shudder as Sherlock unfairly skated a hand down John’s chest and pressed it over the growing bulge in his trousers, rubbing fiercely and relentlessly.

Sherlock abruptly pulled back, grabbed the nearest of John’s legs that was half on the seat and half off it, and stuck the foot on top of the seat’s backrest. He grabbed the other leg and pointedly placed it against his waist, cueing John to wrap it around him.

“Ha—Have you lost your mind?” John panted at him.

The look Sherlock gave him said ‘Yes, a bit,’ and he lunged back down, smearing open-mouthed kisses against John’s neck as his knees awkwardly slid downwards across the cushions. He insistently rubbed his clothed erection against John’s through the v of his legs.

John made a choked noise, hot sparks of delicious sensation travelling up directly from his assaulted cock to his head, the muscles in his legs and back screaming in overworked protest, and he could swear the stars above them were spinning. Sherlock was grunting and panting humidly against John’s neck, his arms quivering with the strain of holding the awkward position, hip thumping against John’s trapped leg as he brought them together again and again.

“ _Sherlock,_ Christ,” John whispered, dizzy with exhaustion and spiralling arousal, his body trembling in confusion as to whether it should give out or explode.

Sherlock lifted his head and crashed his mouth into John’s once more, thrusting intently. John coiled his arms around him, delirious.

With sudden, alarming violence and a terrible _THUNK,_ the sleigh upheaved, and they tumbled to the floor of the sleigh in a cataclysm of limbs.

“ _Jesus Christ!_ ” John shouted, his knees getting the worst of it.

Sherlock groaned loudly and scrambled upright from where he’d fallen underneath John, scrabbling for the reins and pulling back on them, hard, bellowing a foghorn “ _STOP_ ” for good measure.

The reindeer stopped with the efficiency of a mechanical emergency brake, and John smacked his head against the front panel in the ensuing momentum, causing him to spew forth profanity.

“What the bloody hell did we hit, a _moose?_ ” he hissed, once he stopped seeing stars.

Sherlock was trying to disentangle himself from underneath John, eventually deciding to just grab the edge of the sleigh’s open side and haul himself out to land on the ground with a moan. John worked on slowly standing up, struggling to keep his muscles from giving out. Sherlock was hauling himself upright as well, ripping his gloves off and rubbing his hands together, igniting flame. He held the ball of fire aloft and squinted in the direction they’d come. Suddenly, his eyes widened. “Oh my god,” he whispered, and took off running.

“Sherlock?” John called, wincing and rubbing at the banged spot on his head, shifting slightly to relieve the pressure on his gradually softening cock.

“JOHN,” Sherlock called back, and it was the exact tone of voice that John recognised on an instinctual level, the tone that made everything snap into crystallised focus. _Emergency._

John was running out of the sleigh in an instant, making a beeline toward the ball of flame Sherlock was holding up as he knelt over a prone figure in the dusting of snow.

“Oh Jesus,” John rasped, falling to his knees beside Sherlock, not even registering the cold wet moisture leaking through his trousers. The woman was lying face-down, with a large laceration on the back of her head that was bleeding through the grey in her hair. She was surprisingly underdressed for the weather—merely wearing a long-sleeved shirt, nice slacks, expensive earrings, and fancy shoes. No coat in sight. John ripped off one of his gloves and swatted Sherlock’s hand away from the woman’s neck, pressing two fingers to her carotid.

“She—She has a pulse,” Sherlock said. “It’s slow, weak.”

So she did. God, at least they hadn’t killed her yet; there was still a chance. “Ma’am? Ma’am, can you hear me?” John said into her ear, tapping her shoulder. No response. “Please, for the love of god, have a mobile,” John muttered, awkwardly checking her front pockets for a phone, inwardly cursing that they hadn’t even thought to bring their own phones, useless though they were at the North Pole. He pulled out a set of house keys and, blessedly, a phone.

He tossed the phone to Sherlock. “Call an ambulance,” he commanded.

“Right,” Sherlock said, dialling 911 with one hand and still holding the flame near John so he could see what he was doing.

Though she was bleeding, John needed to check if she was breathing, or at least give her the space to breathe so she wouldn’t suffocate. He straightened the arm nearest him so that it was straight over her head, checked that her legs were straight, and carefully moved the farther arm to her side. He could hear Sherlock talking with the emergency operator, and he distantly registered Sherlock’s suddenly standing up and sprinting to the sleigh for some reason that he couldn’t be bothered to ask him about at the moment. John placed the woman’s hand that was nearest her head around her neck, then grabbed her waist and firmly braced her neck, pulling her slowly towards him until she was on her side. He paused, then carefully bent her topmost leg a bit more so she could rest in recovery position easier. He stuck his hand in front of her mouth and nose, relieved to feel warm breath against his fingers, though the respiration rate was much slower than he’d have liked.

“She’s breathing,” he called to Sherlock, who was jogging back with something tucked under his arm, phone still to his ear. John picked up a whiff of alcohol, and on leaning over and sniffing near her mouth, he confirmed it. “She’s also been drinking,” he added, hearing Sherlock relaying the information on to the operator.

Sherlock was attempting to hand him a first aid kit. John could’ve kissed him if he weren’t so focused on the task at hand; he just took it from him with the hand not holding her neck, and, after ensuring that her neck was about as secure as it was going to get in that position, opened it, reaching immediately for the gauze. He started doing everything he could to slow the bleeding.

Sherlock had dropped to his knees on the other side of the woman, tucking the phone against his ear with his shoulder as he started checking her wrists. His fingers hooked around a bracelet, and he leant forward to read it better, carefully holding his ball of flame near enough to cast light on the bracelet but not close enough to risk burning her.

“Dorothy Bigerce, Type Two Diabetes, allergic to shellfish and Sulfa,” Sherlock said. “That’s all the information I have. _No,_ I don’t know how it happened, just hurry up and send the ambulance you promised. Yes, I know what I’m doing,” he snapped, abruptly hanging up on the operator.

“ETA?” John asked crisply, checking her pulse and respiration rate again—still there, barely. Her skin was freezing. He had no idea how long she’d been outside before he and Sherlock had hit her, but he guessed it was a long time. He looked around. There wasn’t a farmhouse in sight. Where did she even come from?

“The operator said the ambulance would get here in twenty minutes; I gave her our coordinates. We’re not far from a small city.” Sherlock paused, and John heard him taking a few deep breaths. “Will she live?”

John was pressing gently around the gauze-covered wound, his forehead deeply furrowed. “I don’t know. Let’s hope she doesn’t bleed to death before the ambulance gets here. Or freeze,” he added, touching her scratched-up face briefly and noting that it felt like ice. “Give me your coat,” he said, reaching a hand out. He heard the rustling of Sherlock complying, then felt the fabric touch his hand. He took the coat and draped it over her, then continued, “Don’t know if she has any spinal injuries—it’s a very likely possibility—but I’m not seeing any other major lacerations. With the speed we were going, we ought to have killed her instantly—I’m thinking we just clipped the top of her head. But she’s been subject to exposure for a while before we got here, which doesn’t help.”

“What can I do?” Sherlock asked.

John at last looked up from Dorothy’s face to Sherlock’s—he looked pale as chalk, his eyes wide. John took a deep breath and let it out, glancing over to the sleigh, where the reindeer were fidgeting nervously and watching them.

“Twenty minutes, you said?”

“Yes,” Sherlock said, nodding as he said it.

John made sure he was holding Sherlock’s gaze. “You need to get out of here.”

Sherlock blinked multiple times, as though he couldn’t accept what his brain was deducing as the only acceptable outcome. “But what about you?” he said at last.

“I have to stay with her,” John said, nodding down to Dorothy.

Sherlock’s face morphed through a variety of emotions, starting with horror and ending in indignation. “I can’t just _leave_ you here, John!”

“You have to,” John said shortly, checking Dorothy’s pulse again. She was shaking. “Damn it,” John snapped, taking off his blue overcoat and draping it overtop Sherlock’s coat, tucking in the sides, then taking off his own scarf and placing it around her head carefully. He glanced at Sherlock, who’d utterly failed to move. “You have to _go,_ Sherlock, NOW,” he shouted.

“I am _not_ leaving you here, John,” Sherlock hissed. “You know you’ll be the first person they suspect!”

“Yes, I know that!” John snapped. “And for good reason, too, since _we’re_ the ones who bloody well ran her over in the first place! Which is why you need to _leave_.”

Sherlock set his mouth in a firm line. “I’m not leaving,” he declared. “This isn’t just an accident, John, old women don’t just _appear_ in the middle of nowhere after being at a dinner party. There isn’t even a car on the highway.” Sherlock nodded to his left, presumably in the direction of the road John couldn’t see in the dark but trusted Sherlock to know was there. “There’s undoubtedly foul play going on and they’ll find a way to embroil you into it, John. I can’t leave you with that.”

John took a deep breath, closing his eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, endeavouring to keep a frustrated growl out of his voice. “Sherlock, you’re Father bloody Christmas, and you have a job to do.”

“John, most of the children we deliver to don’t even _need_ me,” Sherlock argued. “What’s one less present in the hoard going to mean to them? _You_ need me more than they do right now, and you—” Sherlock abruptly reached over Dorothy and grasped one of John’s shoulders, forcing John to re-establish eye contact with him. “—John, you matter more to me than they do.”

“I don’t _care,_ Sherlock!” He glared into Sherlock’s eyes. “I don’t care if two hundred children don’t need you, Sherlock, but if there’s _one_ —if there’s even _one_ that does, you need to be there for them. That’s your job right now.” Sherlock’s face tightened a little, clearly hurt, and John softened his face in response. He removed his hand from Dorothy’s pulse point and put it over Sherlock’s hand on his shoulder, squeezing. “I’ll be fine,” he said reassuringly. “I’ve gotten out of worse scrapes than this, trust me.”

Sherlock’s frown deepened, but John could see resignation starting to enter his eyes. “John, if I leave now, I can’t come back for you,” he said. “Do you understand that? I’m…I’m programmed—the Obligation dictates I either move forward or I don’t move at all. It’s a course set as deep inside me as a migration pattern, and if I try to deviate from the path it would disorient me to the point I couldn’t come to you even if I wanted to. You need to understand that.” There was an earnestness in his eyes that John could read clearly; he was begging John to tell him to stay.

John offered him the best smile he could muster, which wasn’t much of a smile at all. “Sherlock, you need to leave,” he repeated softly.

Sherlock sighed in defeat, closed his eyes, and nodded. He stood up and started to walk to the sleigh, but halfway there he turned and stalked back, ripping off his scarf as he did so, which made the material change from red to blue. He knelt in front of John and tied the scarf securely around his neck, then placed a hand on each of his shoulders and said, “Promise me you’ll come back to me, John. I won’t rest until you do.”

John gave him one last look, determined to sear the image of Sherlock’s anxious face in his mind’s eye for however long they’d be apart, then nodded. “I promise,” he whispered, feeling the lingering warmth of Sherlock’s body heat pressed against his neck. Sherlock nodded in return, stood again, and ran to the sleigh.

John watched as they took off into the sky and disappeared behind a cloud, though he could still hear the echoes of Donner’s thunderous hoof beats resounding throughout the basin, and then he turned his attention back to Dorothy, who was still shivering, bleeding through the gauze, and labouring for breath.

He shivered at a fierce gust of wind that buffeted at him and tucked his ushanka down harder over his ears. He checked Dorothy’s breathing and pulse again with his free hand before he stuck it back in the glove he’d cast aside to warm his fingers up for a few minutes. He rubbed at his arms.

He realised he didn’t have a penny to his name or even one piece of ID to prove who he was, and that he didn’t even have a plausible explanation of how he’d come to be here that he could offer to the police, when they inevitably asked.

All he had were the clothes on his back that he’d partially given to an elderly woman who could very well die while under his care. That, and a sleep-deprived mind and body, which would soon give out from pure exhaustion when the last desperate rush of adrenalin wore off. That was it. That was all he had.

He was cold, and utterly alone.

It was Christmas Day.

 

* * *

 [22] Although Christmas trees are common in France, traditionally speaking they’re not the centerpiece of the holiday décor—the Nativity scene takes that honor, its emphasis derived from France’s longstanding cultural history with Catholicism. So Nativity scenes are generally given more prominence and attention than their Germanic counterparts in Christmas-observant French homes.

[23] Previously mentioned in another footnote, PÈRE FOUETTARD is a “dark” Christmas entity known in France (and other French-speaking places in Europe, like Belgium, etc.) who resembles a scary-looking old man and punishes bad children by whipping them with switches or giving them coal. However, Sherlock’s not much resembling him in this instance—he’s adopting more of a Germanic(?) Krampus-like appearance as seen here 

– but in order to make his position clear to the French child, he just adopted a name the child would recognize. Krampuses serve much the same function as their French counterpart.

[24] I can’t speak for all Americans everywhere, but generally speaking, it seems to be uncommon to host large non-family-related Christmas parties actually _on_ Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, which are traditionally considered more “family-centered” days; large Christmas parties such as this are usually held in the weeks before Christmas. They can still happen day of, but they’re somewhat rare in comparison.

[25] In 1647, the Puritan-led English Parliament banned the celebration of Christmas and replaced it with a day of fasting—although the “banning of Christmas” is popularly attributed to Oliver Cromwell all by his own self, there is no documentation or evidence to suggest he played any sort of prominent role in the formation of this legislation, but nevertheless, he would’ve supported the measure, and during his reign he made sure to enforce the measures. Puritans generally didn’t like Christmas because it was too “popish” and “pagan” for them and they believed it encouraged immoral behavior. This ban upset a lot of people and was generally considered a bad move. There were riots. Many riots. The conservative Puritan attitude also carried over into Colonial America as well and lasted for quite some time—by the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, it STILL was not widely celebrated and Christmas itself was not proclaimed a holiday by Congress until 1870 (almost a hundred years later).

[26] [A REAL PERSON](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Haraguchi). WHO HAS ACTUALLY MEMORIZED 100,000 DIGITS OF PI.

[27] This is one of those “truth is stranger than fiction” moments—honest to god, KFC is a _big_ deal in Japan every Christmas. You literally have to order your Christmas chicken dinner from KFC AT LEAST a month in advance if you even want to get a meal (though ordering even earlier than that is recommended, because even then there’s the likelihood they might just get sold out). As the legend goes, when a group of foreigners couldn’t find turkey on Christmas Day, they opted for KFC chicken instead, and the company essentially went “hhmmmmm we can CAPITALIZE on this!” This launched the “Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii!” (“Kentucky for Christmas!”) campaign in 1974, and it was…insanely successful. The tradition continues to this day, with commercials starring major pop cultural figures spreading the message far and wide, as seen [here](http://youtu.be/QG1e7FE1G4Y) (er, I don’t know who she is, but I’ve been assured she’s famous) and figures of Colonel Sanders himself dressed as old Saint Nick: 

And, despite Sherlock’s protests that it wasn’t his idea, I sort of like to headcanon-pretend that when Sherlock’s mum was pregnant with him and supervising her husband with the Christmas delivery, she SUDDENLY HAD A KFC CRAVING and so Patrick Holmes was like “ok, brb” and fetched her KFC from the nearest available source and thus accidentally started the tradition. :P

[28] All true again! Christmas Eve in particular is heavily associated with romance, and it’s said that in Japan you can tell if someone is single by asking them if they have plans for Christmas or not. I’m not exactly sure why it’s become associated with lovers, but it’s just sort of…happened. In general, Japan seems to have adopted Christmas in much the same way that America has adopted Halloween—it essentially doesn’t concern itself with the religious meanings behind the holiday and instead just celebrates the sheer fun-ness of the commercialism and adopts its own traditions for it. As for “traditional” ways lovers celebrate the day, some ways that are listed include going to see Christmas lights, getting fancy dinner in a restaurant, eating “Christmas cake” (sort of like a sponge cake, usually with strawberries on it), and getting a room in a fancy hotel (or, the more frugal just opt for jingling the bells at home).

[29] Although Christianity is very much a minority religion in India (about 2.3% of the population), considering the sheer population size of the country, this amounts to over 25 million Christians. One of the largest Christian populations is in Mumbai, most of whom are Roman Catholic, and usually Christmas Eve is celebrated with Midnight Mass, followed by a massive feast (with lots of curries), and the exchange of presents. In Mumbai, there’s also a bit of an informal competition among Christian neighbors to see who can set up the most awesome Nativity scene in their window, and they go to great lengths to hang up paper lantern stars between the houses so that stars float above you as you walk down the road—it’s quite pretty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N** : Hello my friends, you've made it to the end of Part 3! And yes. Yes, I _have_ been waiting eight whole months to bring you this cliffhanger. For those among you who might not be in on the joke, let me invite you to experience [the most infamous Christmas song in North American history](http://youtu.be/MgIwLeASnkw) that was the inspiration for this cliffhanger. Watch it and despair. You never should have trusted me, readers.
> 
>  **ALSO** , this is mostly just a heads-up for any new readers who've come along, since everyone has been excellently patient on the last couple of rounds: please do NOT send me any messages badgering me about "when will the next chapter be up???" or any of its variants. Doing so will result in me purposely delaying the release of said chapters for a _whole_ week for every such comment I receive. Other than this one pet peeve of mine, I'm more than excited to talk with you about anything else or answer any other questions you might have! Thanks for everyone who's been reading, subscribing, kudosing, commenting, or otherwise supporting this story so far! You've all been DAZZLING! :D


	17. December 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N** : *kicks open coffin lid* Guess who's not dead?
> 
> First of all, thank you so, so much for being so patient, everyone (well...most of you. :P You know who you are, impatient ones). Issues in Real Life were sort of really kicking my butt for a good long while, and they sort of still are to a degree. But I at least wanted to get a new chapter out to you before the new Sherlock ep comes out on New Years, because I'll be damned if I let the show beat me at the updating race (technically, I've already beaten them with the last section, but I want to beat them twice, because I can). The rest of this section of chapters is about 85% written, so I am SO CLOSE TO THE LIGHT...SO VERY CLOSE...I CAN ALMOST TASTE IT...and if nothing goes wrong in Real Life (*crosses fingers*), I'm estimating I'll be getting the rest of the chapters for this section out to you by late January/early-to-mid-to-late February? BELIEVE IN ME.
> 
> Second of all, hearty thanks and gratitude to my beta Shaindy and to newcomer Britpicker/beta Neverwhere! Who have both done fantastic jobs of making sure logical assumptions are made, that characters behave as they should, that words make sense, that the homeless are protected, and that nothing is boring. <3
> 
> Third of all, it's recommended (though obviously not required) that you reread/review/skim the chapter previous to this one, since the story picks right up on the heels of where we last off. Enjoy!
> 
> **Disclaimer** : This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, organizations, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real or factual.

Part IV: New Year’s

Ch 17: December 25

He was beginning to think the ambulance might never come. Over and over, John checked Dorothy’s vitals and tried to maintain a gentle pressure around her head wound in an effort to slow the bleeding. She was doing poorly, shivering worse than ever. He took off his jumper and tucked it overtop the two extra coats they’d put on her, just to give her that extra layer of warmth. There wasn’t much else he could do; he couldn’t abandon her to see if there were any houses nearby to call for help. The wind was chilling, but if the ambulance was coming as Sherlock said it would be, it shouldn’t be much longer, surely?

She abruptly stopped breathing.

“Oh no you don’t,” he said under his breath. “Stay with me, Dorothy.” He slowly, carefully, turned her from her side to her back, keeping a firm hold on her neck, then tilted her jaw back so her airway was open. After checking that her pulse was still present, he started giving her assisted breathing.

A bitter wind pushed between his shoulder blades as knelt before the old woman. He watched the rise and fall of her chest. Pulse: weak, erratic. Skin: cold. Blood loss: unhelpful. She was going to die out here unless she got advanced medical help and supplies soon.

Then what?

If she died, what was he going to tell the police when they came? Even if she _didn’t_ die, what was he going to tell the police? Should he just run at the first sign of sirens and hope for the best? His conscience snarled at him, and he immediately dismissed the idea. The only thing he had ever run from were his own damn feelings about Sherlock, and he was _responsible_ for this woman now. Hell, he didn’t even know where exactly he was (besides Wyoming), and it’s not like running away blindly would help anyone, let alone himself. He could either get himself hopelessly lost in the cold wilderness of America, or condemn himself to the heated interior of a prison in America. Wonderful. Where the _hell_ was the ambulance?!

Well—never mind that, a plan could come later. Priorities first: care for patient until help arrives, then worry about himself and Sherlock later. He re-checked her pulse, keeping up a looping prayer that it would still be there each time he checked, and continued assisted breathing.

In the distance, echoing sirens wailed across the basin like ghostly banshees, and cool, crisp relief burst in his chest. He glanced around until he saw red flashing lights speeding in his direction; John had no idea how close to the road he was, so he took off his ushanka and waved it furiously, hoping the driver was on the lookout for movement. After a moment, the ambulance flashed its headlights twice, and it burst forward in a rush of speed until it could park parallel to him a few yards away on the dark road. Doors banged open, and a couple of paramedics dashed from the vehicle with a stretcher and med bags with them.

John started listing off information to them as soon as they got in hearing range, keeping two fingers on Dorothy’s pulse and only taking a second’s break to give her another breath.

“Sir—Sir, we’ve got her, let us take it from here,” the female paramedic was saying.

“Yes—right—yes,” John said, some part of him realising that he should definitely let the medics who’d _not_ been delivering presents for over twelve hours tonight do their jobs, and he backed off and wobbled to his feet, following them to the ambulance after they’d managed to shift Dorothy onto the stretcher. He was shaking.

Once they’d loaded the stretcher into the vehicle, a male paramedic was putting a heavy blanket across John’s shoulders and John felt stupidly grateful for it. He was also starting to see odd darting shadows and lights out of the corners of his eyes, but he attributed that to exhaustion creeping in through the fading adrenalin.

“Deep breaths, sir,” the male paramedic reminded him, briefly placing a steadying hand on his shoulder to bring him back to awareness.

“Right. Right,” John said, inhaling deeply. “I’m fine,” he added, nodding towards Dorothy, where the female paramedic was rapidly at work trying to make sure she was getting oxygen. “Focus on her.”

There wasn’t time to rest, though. Dorothy’s condition might be out of his hands now, but he still needed to figure out a story _and_ how he was going to get back to Sherlock without a shred of ID or money on him. He placed a hand against a wall of the ambulance to steady himself as it sped through the night to their destination.

First things first: story. He’d figure out travel once he was in the clear with the authorities. He wracked his mind for all the things Sherlock had ever said in the past about successful alibis. Lies had detail; simplicity was best. But also don’t repeat your lie verbatim each time because that’s suspicious and unnatural. Tell as much of the truth as you can without giving yourself away, but don’t offer more information than what they explicitly ask for. _Ask for a lawyer_ —even if you can’t afford one, having one is better than not. Answer anything that might be damaging with “I don’t know.” Try not to look guilt-ridden.

They would ask him what he saw happen, so he’d have to say he didn’t see anything happen, they’d— _he’d_ —just found her that way (oh god, he’d have to remember to not mention _anything_ about Sherlock being there too, otherwise they’d think he was trying to cover for someone…which he _was_ , but that’s not the point). They’d ask him what he’d been doing there, which was trickier to—

“Come on, sir!” barked the male paramedic, and John realised with a start that they’d arrived at the hospital. He stumbled out of the ambulance and followed the stretcher into the building, still clutching his blanket around his shoulders. There was a small clutch of emergency room doctors and nurses waiting to receive the unconscious woman, but one of them detached from the herd to come up to John and guide him down a different way. She was speaking to him in a distinctive ‘doctor voice’ that he immediately resented being used on him.

“I am fine. I am _fine_ ,” he repeated, in as steady and authoritative a voice he could manage without making his teeth chatter. “I’m just a bit cold and a little tired. My pulse is steady, I can feel all my fingers and toes, and all I really need is a place to sit down and something warm to drink.”

She did not look placated. “Sir, you are in _shock_.”

“No, I am not. Really. Trust me, I know what shock feels like, and I know how to diagnose it, doctor,” he said, summoning up his own ‘doctor voice’ and looking her straight in the eye.

She appeared to internally register that he was indeed on the same level as her, professionally speaking, and that he was as well as he declared. Her posture relaxed. “All right, then. Do you want to sit in the waiting room?” she asked, gesturing to a pair of doors on her left. “I’ll make sure that someone brings you coffee. I expect an officer will want to ask you some questions, in any case.”

John really hoped the coffee came before the officer did, but he simply nodded his agreement and let himself be led into the waiting area, sending a nod to the receptionist on duty and settling into a chair. After a few seconds of this, with his head buzzing with a conflicting sensation of over-tiredness and lingering traces of adrenalin, he decided what he really wanted was to take a piss and wash his face. He asked the receptionist where the loos were, and after the man gave him a briefly confused look, he was pointed to a door in the corner.

It was just a single toilet set-up, so he locked the door behind him and tried to figure out his story once more. He spent several minutes just staring into space. Cold water on his face helped make him feel a bit more human—as did washing off the blood on his hands he’d forgotten was there. He briefly wondered when he’d be getting his and Sherlock’s coats back. He wondered how the old woman was doing. Looking into his reflection in the mirror over the sink, he could see the dark bruise-coloured bags under his eyes, and he couldn’t help thinking that he looked immensely guilty.

Well, he had to hope that the officer in charge of the case wasn’t as sharp as Sherlock. Where the hell was this, anyway? Somewhere in Wyoming…surely the officers here wouldn’t be that experienced in investigating violent crime? It’s not like he was in New York City or something. Besides, out here in these small towns, maybe being a Good Samaritan could count for something in his favour.

He couldn’t pretend he had any relatives in the area that he was visiting for Christmas, because they’d try to check them to confirm his alibi. Maybe he could just say he’d been on holiday…? And he’d…gotten mugged and had all his ID stolen? Or—er, possibly he was carjacked and left on the road? It was a flimsy, flimsy alibi, but he honestly couldn’t think of anything else that could feasibly work for his situation, and he couldn’t stay in the toilet forever.

As much as he wanted to, he knew just trying to make a run for it wouldn’t work either—plenty of people had seen him and would be able to describe him, and running away would just make him look even _guiltier_.

Well, then…bullshitting and trusting in lawyers it was, then, and praying that this was resolved in plenty of time so he could get back to Sherlock.

He exited the bathroom to find a plainclothes officer in the waiting room holding two cups of coffee. She smiled thinly and held out one of the cups towards him.

“So you’re our Good Samaritan, are you?” she remarked, with the deep croak of someone who either had once been or still was a dedicated smoker.

The officer was taller than him—he guessed about 5’10”—and possibly older than him, too, with a brown, sun-weathered face entirely devoid of makeup and greying, curly hair tightly tied back. She reminded John a bit of a grizzly bear; she had a flintiness about her he was unused to seeing in civilians, and he got the impression that she was someone who probably owned multiple firearms that she used regularly on weekends. As he took the proffered coffee from her with a small “thank you,” he noticed that the hand that had been holding his coffee was missing its pinkie and ring finger.

He took a gulp of the coffee, which was too hot and tasted bland.

“I’m Detective Drosselmeyer,” the woman said, as she set down her own untouched coffee and retrieved a clipboard that had been tucked into her armpit. “Could you tell me more about the incident with Dorothy Bigerce?”

“Er, I’m afraid I don’t know much,” John said, then looked to the chairs. “Could we sit down? It’s just, you know, long night.”

“Of course,” she replied, as she moved with him to take a chair seated adjacent to his. “British, are you?”

“Ah, yes,” John said. His accent probably _would_ be noticeable out here. “From London. I’m John, by the way. John Watson.”

She scribbled a note on what he assumed was an incident report. “What brings you to Cody, Mr. Watson?”

John blinked. Was Cody the name of the town? Well, it would have to be, he guessed. “Is that where I am?” he asked her.

Her brow furrowed. “Did you not know that?”

“Well, no,” he said. Damn it, he was already screwing this up. He took another sip of coffee. “I actually came from…” He struggled to remember the name of the last place he and Sherlock had stopped at. “…Livingston.”

She raised an eyebrow. “ _Livingston?_ In Montana?”

“Ye-es,” he answered. Was that really far away? It was hard to tell at the speed the sleigh had been going.

“Then how did you end up here on Christmas Eve—well, Christmas morning now—at this hour?”

Here was where things got… _tricky_. He sighed heavily and took a long gulp of his coffee. “Well, I _was_ in Livingston, just on holiday, you know, wanted to see the mountains in the snow.” He smiled in a way he hoped was very charming and very British. “We don’t get much of either of those in London, after all.” She was still watching him carefully, looking not the least bit charmed. Damn. “Anyways,” he continued, “I was just going out to get some Chinese for dinner, and uh…this might be hard to believe, but…I was carjacked.”

Drosselmeyer blinked. “Carjacked,” she echoed, with half a cough.

“Yes, I know,” John said, nodding emphatically, trying to encourage a sign of agreement out of her instead of blank-faced concentration. “I _know_ it sounds ridiculous. I mean, I’d’ve expected this kind of thing from New York, but not _out here_ , you know? It’s why I wanted to try a holiday out here, it seemed so nice and…peaceful,” he said, letting some of his nervousness filter into his fingers to lend credence to the lie.

She inhaled deeply and let it out slowly, her brow furrowing. She scribbled something into the report. “Can you describe the carjacker?”

“Not very well,” John said. “They knocked me out, you see, put me in the boot.” He idly raised a hand to touch his head, completely forgetting that he actually _had_ a nasty bump on it from when he’d knocked it into the sleigh’s dash panel, and cringed.

Drosselmeyer startled at his genuine hiss of pain and made a halting move to come forward and help him. “Do you need them to take a look at that? Why didn’t you mention it to the paramedics? You could have a concussion.”

“No, I’m fine, it’s just a nasty bump. Honestly forgot I had it,” he replied. “I kind of had other things on my mind once we ran into Dorothy.”

“You ran into her?”

“The carjackers did,” John corrected her. “I was still in the boot at the time, but I do remember the rather sudden stop.”

“There was more than one?”

“Two of them,” he said, rather proud of himself for thinking up such a good red herring. “One was tall, the other was about my size. Couldn’t see their faces, since they had ski masks on, but um…the tall one had a really, really deep baritone, and the other one was just, um…normal. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful in describing them, but it all just happened so fast, you know?”

The frown lines at the corners of her mouth deepened, but she wrote the details down carefully. “When were you carjacked?”

“Um,” John said, affecting a frown of concentration. “Around eight, I think.”

“And what happened after they put you in the…you meant the trunk, right?”

“Yes—ah, yes, that’s what I meant,” John said, coughing slightly and taking another sip of coffee. “Well, I was out of it for a bit, not sure for how long, but when I came to, I noticed we were driving and I was in the boo—the trunk. Drove a long time. I realised they’d taken my mobile phone and wallet, so I couldn’t call anyone. Then sometime later, they slammed on the brakes, and it felt like we’d hit something. I thought it might’ve been a deer or a moose or something, and I was starting to worry I’d be stuck in the back of this car with two dead men in the front, but then they opened the back and let me out.”

Drosselmeyer waited patiently and watched him as he drank more coffee, her pen bobbing back and forth in between her two fingers.

John was remembering the shock of seeing Dorothy’s body lying on the ground, and he let the memory filter through. “She was just…lying there. The carjackers said they were going to leave me with her, told me I was going to take the blame for it. Bit stupid of them to think I’d do that, but I think they were shocked by it too, I mean, we were in the middle of _nowhere_ , so I doubt they were expecting a little old lady to cross the road. They helped me move her off the road, then they just drove off. So I started giving her the best first aid I could—I’m a doctor, by the way,” he added, with a brief quirk of his lips. “I’d show you my ID, but, well…it’s probably hundreds of miles away by now.”

She nodded in response as she continued writing down details. “I’m surprised they didn’t kill you,” she commented. “Leaving a living witness behind isn’t exactly smart.”

John gulped. “Well, no…I hadn’t thought of it like that, but I guess I’m lucky.” He sighed. “But I think they really _were_ shocked about hitting the old woman. They acted very…twitchy, after they’d let me out. Probably weren’t thinking clearly. I’d told them I was a doctor, and I guess they thought I could save her.”

Drosselmeyer made a noncommittal humming sound. “Well, I’m glad you weren’t hurt worse, Dr. Watson.”

“Yeah,” John said, finishing his coffee. It may be crap coffee, but at least it’d helped warm him up a little. He had no clue how he was faring in his little interview; the woman had a wooden expression that made it difficult to tell if she believed him or not. She asked him a few more questions about his credentials, his home address, his hotel (he made up the first one he could think of, Best Western), and a number where she could reach him for further inquiries. He answered them as honestly as he could, though for the last he added, “Well, it wouldn’t do much good to call that, seeing as the carjackers took my phone.”

“I assume you’ll be sticking around here for a little longer, so I’ll be able to contact you with any further questions,” she answered. “You’ll have to come down to the station anyway to fill out a theft report of what was stolen from you—I don’t have one on me, since I’m just investigating the hit-and-run at the moment.”

“ _Stay_ here?” John barked. “Where on earth could I stay? I don’t have any money; the carjackers took all my ID. I don’t even have a car to go back to my hotel! Christ, I don’t even have money to pay the ambulance fee.”

She offered him a sparse smile, only the second one he’d seen from her throughout the entire interview. Digging into the inner pocket of her jacket with her good hand, she pulled out two business cards—one with her contact information and another with a red cross on it—and offered them to him. “The Red Cross can get you situated for the time being, and if you just explain your situation to the hospital and tell them your home address, they’ll mail you the bill.”

At that moment, a group of worried-looking people entered the waiting room from outside. Drosselmeyer nodded to them in acknowledgement then looked back to John. She stuck out her undamaged hand for him to shake, which he took. “Thank you for your cooperation, Dr. Watson. I’ll inform you if I have any more questions, though I expect to see you at the station later today for the theft report.”

“Ah, of course, and thanks—for this, I mean,” he said, holding up the Red Cross card.

She gave him another, friendlier, smile. “Part of the job, sir. When you call them up, ask for Diana and tell her Rebecca Drosselmeyer sent you.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks again.” John couldn’t believe it. Was he really getting away with it?

Drosselmeyer nodded, stood up, and turned towards what was presumably Dorothy Bigerce’s family, who were talking in low tones with a nurse who’d come out to update them on the old woman’s condition. John suddenly had a horrid vision of the detective informing them that _he_ was the one who’d found her and having to guiltily endure their gratitude. He jumped up from his chair. “Wait a second!”

Drosselmeyer turned back. “Yes?”

“Um, it’s just…” He lowered his voice. “…Could you perhaps not tell them about my involvement? I don’t want to be a bother or cause a stir, you know?”

Drosselmeyer gave him an odd look as he fell into parade stance.

“It’s a British thing,” he whispered, giving her a small smile.

Suddenly, a gleam of recognition lit in her eyes, and her expression hardened. “You’re a soldier,” she said.

John blinked, startled. “Sorry, what?”

Her brow furrowed as she studied him. “Have you served in the armed forces before, Dr. Watson?”

_Shit_. “Um, yes, a couple of years ago—why?”

“Oh, nothing important,” she said, shifting her weight a little and unconsciously readjusting her watch. “I recognised the stance, is all. My niece used to do the same.”

John carefully noted the ‘used to’ but said nothing about it. He merely replied, “I see.”

There was an awkward beat of silence, then she said, “I’ll only report my findings when they are confirmed as fact, Dr. Watson. If that is all…”

“Yes, sorry, I guess I’ll just…see you later then. Let you get back to work,” John said, trying to give her an encouraging, biddable smile.

She simply nodded, then went over to the Bigerces and began talking to the calmest-looking member among them, an older, stoic-looking gentleman.

John was in trouble and he knew it. If Drosselmeyer was worth her salt as a detective (and from what he could tell, she definitely was), she’d start leaning on him _hard_. His alibi was shaky enough, barely enough to get away with, but now she knew he was a veteran—she’d be questioning his mental health, she’d be questioning why he didn’t fight back against the ‘carjackers’ if he’d had combat training, she’d be questioning if he was dishonourably discharged, she’d be questioning if he was now a hired hit-man. This was bad.

But he had nowhere he could go yet, no way to get home, let alone a way to get back to Sherlock at the North Pole. Stealing a car at this point was out of the question—he’d have the police on him in no time _and_ fleeing would be seen as an admission of guilt for running over Dorothy.

So he went to the receptionist’s desk, asked to use the phone, and called up the number on the Red Cross card. The woman named Diana on the other end of the line was very nice and accommodating, especially since he mentioned Rebecca Drosselmeyer, and she informed him that she’d send someone over to come pick him up shortly. John watched the detective interviewing the family members out of the corner of his eye all the while, noting that she seemed much friendlier with them than she’d been with him. Unsurprising, really, since _he_ was the outsider here, the family was obviously local, and _they_ were the ones who’d just had their grandmother walloped over the head—but still, John and Sherlock may have accidentally run her over, but they hadn’t been the ones to put her out there in the first place. Even if the old woman had some sort of dementia, had just wandered outside when no one was paying attention, just what were the odds of _him and Sherlock_ hitting her, in the huge wide nothingness of Wyoming? It all felt like an impossible set-up somehow.

As he nervously waited for someone to arrive for him, he wondered when he was going to get his and Sherlock’s coats and other articles back—last he remembered, they were with Dorothy on the stretcher. Surely someone would notice that they didn’t belong to her and try to return them? But he didn’t want to draw more attention to himself while the detective was still in the room…maybe he could come back later when she wasn’t here? Though if he waited, it seemed likely she would get hold of the clothes first, and _then_ she’d wonder why John owned two coats, one of which was suspiciously posh and tailored to dimensions that were clearly not his own. Damn it.

Well, it seemed he had no choice but to count on his luck of picking them up later, since his ride was here and there was still the whole ‘don’t draw more attention to yourself’ thing currently in play. He sent a nod and a curt wave to Drosselmeyer, whom he could see was eyeing him, and she gave him a short wave back. Then he went out into the brisk darkness of the dry winter night, where a humming white van with a red cross was steaming exhaust into the air.

Luckily, his driver seemed just as exhausted and uninterested in talking as John was, for which John couldn’t blame him, it being…4:24 in the morning on Christmas Day, according to the clock on the vehicle’s dashboard. It felt much later, at least for John. The streets were empty of traffic, and the radio was playing a sluggish rendition of “Silent Night” that made his eyelids droop and flutter. A few of the city fairy lights were still on, dressing the naked hands of old trees with amber bracelets, and there was one waving ‘reindeer’ still illuminated in the window of a store and cheerfully wishing the world ‘Happy Holidays!’ They eventually arrived at a modest-looking brick building, and inside at the front desk he found a yawning blonde woman about his age who looked as though she’d just rolled out of bed and pulled on a heavy coat and jeans. John felt a bit guilty about that.

It was Diana, of course, the woman he’d spoken with on the phone, which became quite clear once he heard her voice. “It’s a bit crowded at the moment, Mr. Watson, but we’ve managed to fix up a spot for you,” she said kindly, leading him through a door into what looked like an indoor gymnasium where dozens of cots were set up with snoring people asleep on top of them. There was a strong, musty smell in the air. Homeless shelter—he should’ve guessed that’s where they’d place a penniless man to rest out the remainder of the night. Well…he supposed he’d slept in worse conditions before, and he was pathetically grateful for having a place to sleep off his exhaustion for a few hours.

She led him to a cot that’d been set up in the corner and whispered, “We’ll be serving Christmas breakfast around nine; you’re welcome to it, dear.”

At the mention of food, John realised that he was ravenous—he hadn’t eaten a proper meal since he was at the North Pole, which was…oh god, he didn’t even know how many hours ago, he’d been in nearly every time zone tonight. He whispered a “thank you” back at her, watched her walk back out of the dark gymnasium, then toed off his shoes before tying the laces in a complex knot around the poles of the cot. The blanket they’d provided was somewhat scratchy but warm, and as he stretched out on the cot, he let out a soft sigh and closed his eyes.

He realised with some surprise that although his shock blanket had disappeared, he was still wearing the ushanka Mummy Holmes had given him, as well as the scarf Sherlock had imparted on him the moment before he’d flown away. It made him feel absurdly relieved to still have them, and he twisted a finger into the wool of the scarf where it rested on his chest and let the jitters he’d been feeling for hours wind down. He hoped Sherlock had made it back to the North Pole okay—that _he_ wasn’t in a prison somewhere in California or Alaska, that he’d eaten something and gone to bed…though it was doubtful he’d done the latter two. Sherlock was a pig-headed git, after all. John’s head buzzed with over-exhaustion and worry, and the snores and shuffles of the homeless were adding to the restless symphony surging in him. But in spite of it all, John quickly fell into a dead sleep, hallucinating the distressed whine of a violin in his ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N** : And there you have it - for now! I guarantee you that this next brief hiatus will be much, _much_ shorter than the last. ^^;; (THE LIGHT...I CAN ALMOST SEE...THE LIGHT!!!)
> 
> In the meanwhile, if you're just DESPERATE for something to read (not that you'll have a lack of new things to read after the new ep, I'm sure), you can take a gander at mycapeisplaid's [The Guarded Secret](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3632298/chapters/8022684), which I spent a...not insubstantial amount of time betaing this last summer and which I consider a sort of godchild near and dear to my heart.
> 
> ALSO!!!!!!!!!!! A MIRACLE HAS OCCURRED!!!!!!!!!!!!! My dear, talented tumblr wife Meetingyourmaker has blessed this story...WITH AMAZING FANART! AAAAAA!!!!! We have [THIS FIRST AMAZING MASTERPIECE](http://meetingyourmaker.tumblr.com/post/105534583958/you-and-sugar-plums-1-hi-canolacrush-dear-i) featuring mistletoe!!! kissing!!! AND A DOOR EVEN COOLER THAN THE ONE I THOUGHT UP BECAUSE WIFE IS A GENIUS!!!!!! And then!! WE HAVE [A *SECOND* AMAZING MASTERPIECE](http://meetingyourmaker.tumblr.com/post/106026204358/you-and-sugar-plums-2-dear-canolacrush-i) featuring GORGEOUS Santa!lock and BAMF!WINTERGEAR!JOHN with THE COOLEST LOOKING CLOUD-SLEIGH and REINDEER!!! WE HAVE BEEN SO BLESSED!!! Go and praise these beautiful pieces!!


	18. December 25, daybreak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N** : Hello everyone! Remember when I said back in December that "provided nothing in real life goes wrong" we'd be back sharpish with posting? ...This was before I knew what 2016 would entail, unfortunately. But on the bright side, I now have the rest of Part 4 for you in full, and starting today you'll have six weekly updates to look forward to! WE'LL GET JOHN OUT OF WYOMING YET, JUST YOU SEE!
> 
> Shout-out to my beta Shaindy for continuing to slug through this monster of a fic, and thanks to neverwhere for additional britpicking and betaing!
> 
> Thanks again everyone for your patience, and I hope you enjoy! :D

Lights suddenly coming on in a gymnasium—followed by the squeak of cot posts against a polished basketball court—was not exactly the best way to be woken up, but John supposed that it was better than waking up to silence. He felt oddly alert for having gotten so little sleep, but he also felt weak with hunger and had a tension headache pulsing through his right lobe. However, at least his shoes were still where he’d left them; he untied them from their posts, put them on, and eyed the queue of homeless people leading into another room at the back. His nose told him breakfast was back there. It smelled like scrambled eggs.

He shuffled over to the queue and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible. His stomach roared, and he wrapped his arms around it in an effort to shut it up. The man queueing in front of him chuckled, looked over his shoulder, and said, “Don’t I know the feeling, buddy.” John gave him a weak smile, not really in the mood to chat, and decided it’d probably be better to speak as little as possible to hide his accent.

Then—food. Warm, solid food. It was just eggs, toast, a couple of sausages, and coffee, but from the wide grins he could see from the other people in line, it was paramount to a feast. John sat down at the far corner of a table with his tray and did his best not to scarf it all down at once. Considering his current state of affairs, he wasn’t certain when he’d be eating next, so it’d be better to make it last.

After getting a substantial amount of food in him, his headache receded some, and he thought about what to do next. Filling out a false theft report and talking more with the detective would just make him dig his own grave even deeper. He still needed his and Sherlock’s coats back from the hospital—and maybe he could check up on Dorothy to hear how she was doing, if he could do it without looking suspicious. He needed money. More importantly, he needed transportation—some way to get north that was faster than walking, some way to get into Canada without a passport.

Did any trains run through this city? Maybe he could pick up the coats, find the nearest rail, and walk it until he found a train going due north, then stowaway on it. Not exactly the most comfortable or most fool-proof plan he’d ever come up with, but it was better than nothing. It would at least get him out from under the scrutiny of the local police until he could find a phone and call for backup.

He finished off the last of the eggs and put his tray away. He fingered the end of Sherlock’s scarf to reassure himself he still had it, then tucked his ushanka down harder over his ears. Everything accounted for. Now he just had to nonchalantly walk out the front—

Rebecca Drosselmeyer was in the entryway, quietly chatting with Diana at the desk. Her eyes snapped towards John as soon as he opened the door, and she gave him a subdued smile. _Shit._

“Good morning, Dr. Watson,” the detective said. “I hope you slept well.”

“Ah, yes, I did, thank you,” he mumbled, then turned to Diana and said again, “Thank you.”

Diana smiled. “It’s why we’re here, sir.”

“I realised you wouldn’t know how to get to the station, doctor, so I figured I’d come pick you up after breakfast,” Drosselmeyer said, gesturing to the front door.

“That’s…kind of you, ta,” John replied, trying his best to sound sincere. He had a feeling it was more likely Drosselmeyer wanted to keep an eye on him rather than simple altruism. Unless she’d managed to find out overnight who’d _really_ stuck Dorothy Bigerce out in the middle of nowhere, John guessed he was still the top suspect on her list.

Drosselmeyer stuck a thumb towards the door with her damaged hand and forced a smile. “You ready, then?”

“Uh—” For a moment, John considered the effectiveness of trying to find an alternate escape route through the gym before realising it’d be futile. He smiled back. “—Sure. Haven’t got much else to do.”

They kept up their strained politeness until they reached the police car. On entering it, Drosselmeyer immediately reached for a coffee thermos resting in a cup holder and took a long swig from it. Her face hardened into a stony demeanour.

“Been a long night for you, hasn’t it?” John said, trying to lighten the mood a little.

The corner of her mouth flickered upwards in a brief acknowledgement. “I’ve had longer,” she replied, shifting the car into drive.

The city of Cody looked different in the daytime, as most places predictably did. For one, John could now see there was a gigantic mountain looming to the west, and in the pale morning sunlight, it had the shape and appearance of a majestic yet dirty bar of soap. He also noticed that there was a _ton_ of cowboy and rodeo-themed places everywhere, especially on what he assumed was Cody’s main street: the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, the Proud Cut Saloon, the Irma Hotel, and advertisements for gunfighting re-enactments and something called “The Cody Cattle Company.” Clearly, tourism was big here, and the city knew exactly what it was trying to sell—it was probably rather active in the summer months.

But for now, the streets were still, festooned with Christmas decorations glimmering cheerfully, and they drove through the blocky layout of the city in an uneasy silence. At the city’s outskirts, they pulled into the Cody Police Station, which was a sharp-looking building made of pronounced triangular arches—for some reason it reminded John of the paper peaks of a lotus origami.

And unless he could think of something quickly, he’d be spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to fake his way into looking like a victim and most likely failing. Last chance for a distraction.

As Drosselmeyer was undoing her seatbelt, John blurted, “Sorry, I just remembered—I left my coat with the old woman last night, I was just wondering…you know, is it possible we could pop ‘round the hospital to pick it up? I mean, I don’t currently have a car, and I’d rather have my coat before I forget it again.”

“Well, you’re in luck, Dr. Watson,” Drosselmeyer growled, tersely flashing her teeth in the approximation of a smile, “I have _two_ coats in my possession that the Bigerce family claim don’t belong to them, so you’ll have your pick.”

She sounded a touch too pleased saying that. _Damn._ He’d have to leave Sherlock’s coat here—it’d be too suspicious to try to get it. Besides…Sherlock had more than one of those, didn’t he? And in Father Christmas mode he’d frequently stated that he doesn’t exactly _need_ the coat that much. Still, it would’ve been nice to have had it anyway, for the extra warmth _John_ would surely need getting back north.

“How about Dorothy?” John asked as he followed her inside the building. “Have there been any updates on how she’s doing?”

“Last I heard, they were still unsure of the outcome,” Drosselmeyer replied stiffly. She nodded to the lone receptionist on duty as they passed her.

“Oh,” John said.

She led him into what he had to assume was the common office space, which consisted of eight desks, an ancient copy machine in the corner next to a water cooler, and a proper office for the Chief of Police shoved away in the opposite corner. She brought over a chair from an unoccupied desk and placed it on the opposite side of her own desk, instructing him to wait there while she fetched the articles from the evidence lockers. John did as he was bid and watched her as she exited the room again.

She wouldn’t leave him alone unless there were security cameras around and some sort of alarm system on the windows, so there was not much point in trying to escape. In any case, he wanted his coat back. But he looked around the empty workspace and couldn’t help thinking it was anticlimactic compared to its exterior, not to mention extremely unintimidating compared to the immense bustle of New Scotland Yard. This city probably hadn’t seen a proper murder in it for _at least_ a decade. Each of the desks had cute, miniature Christmas trees set up on them, even—except Drosselmeyer’s, he couldn’t help noticing. The central heating churned out stale-smelling warm air.

Drosselmeyer returned shortly with an armful of rustling plastic, each see-through bag containing a different piece of clothing, which she placed on top of her desk. John sent a puzzled look at the cream-coloured jumper in one of the bags before realising that it was in fact _his_ and that the jumper’s festive pattern must’ve changed back to normal after Sherlock had left. He placed a hand over the bags containing his own coat and the jumper, deciding that the bloody scarf that had originally been his was a lost cause.

“These ones are mine.”

“You can take them,” she said. “I’ve already had someone in lab get what we need from them.”

He blinked. “Really? That’s quick.”

“I work fast,” she stated. “Especially when the culprit is still on the run.”

That sounded like she didn’t think _he_ was the culprit. He smiled as he pulled the bags towards him. “Don’t take breaks, then, do you?” he commented, casting an eye towards the empty desks as he opened the bag containing his jumper.

“I do take breaks. Just not at the same time my colleagues do,” she retorted.

He inspected his jumper, relieved to find that it hadn’t been bled on, and pulled it over his head. It felt nice to have another layer on him, and he eyed the detective with a more confident eye. “Happy Hanukkah, then,” he said.

Her eyebrows lifted. “Weeks ago, but thanks. How did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” John replied, casting another pointed look at the desk trees.

She flickered a smile that was borderline amused, then lifted up one end of the bag containing Sherlock’s Belstaff. “So you don’t know anything about this coat?”

“It’s one of the carjackers,’” John replied, mentally apologising to Sherlock as he did so.

“Oh, really?” she said with interest, pulling out a notepad and scribbling on it. “Awfully generous of him to lend it, considering it has his DNA on it.”

Fortunately, Sherlock didn’t have a DNA record in the United States…that John knew of. _Hopefully_ he didn’t, anyway. John prayed that Drosselmeyer either wouldn’t think to or wouldn’t be able to get the UK records.

“I guess he must’ve had a change of heart,” John muttered with a shrug.

“What about this?” Drosselmeyer said, holding up a bag that had been partially obscured by the Belstaff. The bag had a Father Christmas hat in it.

John bit his lip to keep back an unbidden laugh. “No idea.”

“Hmm.” She frowned, pen bobbing rapidly between her two fingers. “Oh,” she said tonelessly, “I should have you fill out that theft report.” She opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a form.

Oh, wonderful. Now he had to add more lies he could get caught in. There was no helping it now, though; he’d just have to be as minimal as possible. As he tried to remember what rental car companies existed in the States (Enterprise, he decided—he thought that one was international, at least), Drosselmeyer watched him patiently with an eerie focus that reminded him a bit too much of a marionette.

“Clara served three tours over there,” she declared, apropos of nothing.

John was startled mid-think from writing vague items in his theft report. “Sorry?”

“My niece,” she said, with a small smile. “She was in Iraq.”

“Oh,” said John, wondering why she was bringing this up now. He smiled politely. “I had a sister-in-law named Clara. She wasn’t military, though.”

“Really? Small world. Though I imagine you’d remember a Clara in the military if you’d met her.”

“Well, I was stationed in Afghanistan, so I wouldn’t have run across your Clara. It’s not unusual to have female servicemembers though—several of my colleagues were,” he added.

“Is that right? What branch were you?” she asked, leaning forward slightly and smiling.

“Medical corps,” he answered, smiling back. Thank god, she was finally starting to act less like a stone wall. That was a good sign.

“That must’ve been challenging,” she said, brow furrowing.

“It was—but I was never bored.”

“Must be quite dull here compared to over there.”

And all at once John realised what she was doing—drawing more information out of him. He smiled thinly and scribbled something on the report. “Dull’s good sometimes, too,” he said evenly, “though being carjacked does spoil the charm.”

“I can imagine,” she said, then took a gulp of coffee, which caused her to loudly clear her phlegmatic throat. “Though my Clara didn’t think the same. She was always busy, busy, busy after a tour—being still for too long bothered her, I think. About had to drag her away from the hunting fields or she’d stay out there all night.”

John made a noncommittal noise and kept his eyes focussed on his false theft report.

“She always had her heart in the right place, though,” Drosselmeyer said with a sigh, and the thin, vibrating sound of sorrow was genuine enough to make John look up. She was idly rubbing at her wristwatch again, her gaze off in the distance; and John, with a jolt of clarity that he was blindly certain somehow did not come from himself, noticed that the hour and minute hands of her watch were the slender legs of a golden ballerina. He had no idea why he noticed that, or why it felt important to notice that, but notice he did.

“When she was little, she said she’d always wanted to be ‘a hero, like her aunt,’” Drosselmeyer continued, an ironic expression souring her smile as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t think her mother’s ever quite forgiven me for that.”

John squinted, suspicion growing of the detective’s intentions. “…Her mother didn’t approve of her joining the army?” he asked.

“No, never,” Drosselmeyer replied, shaking her head in emphasis. “She was never happy about Clara joining up to begin with, but she especially didn’t take well to learning that her little girl came home from her first tour and shot eight deer in one session because she couldn’t figure out how to ‘turn off.’” Drosselmeyer’s face nearly turned blank, but there was a dim fury still lit in her eyes. “Called her own daughter a killing machine. Right to her face.”

John had to take a breath to calm down before he could speak. “It…happens, sometimes, especially with new recruits, PTSD. What she would’ve needed was therapy, not…that.”

Drosselmeyer nodded, her eyes fixed on John. “I know,” she said solidly, “and I made sure she got the right help and support after that. So I understand…that these cases can be difficult, and should be handled with care.”

If there was one thing John despised, it was being _insinuated_ at; it reminded him too much of Mycroft (and other people like him). He was accustomed to Sherlock’s methods: blunt cold questioning or smooth lies to get information, which were at least more _honest_ about being lies. But on the other hand, Drosselmeyer seemed curiously _sincere_ in spite of her insinuations, which was unusual for John to witness in an interrogation. He didn’t immediately know what to anticipate from her, and it kept making him stumble to keep his balance…which was probably her intention from the start. He cleared his throat and lifted his head.

“As a _doctor_ ,” he said, laying emphasis like cement, “I agree with you entirely.”

She gave him a stale smile. “Are you finished with that?” she asked abruptly, pointing both fingers at his half-hearted theft report.

“Oh, ah, yes.” He handed it back to her, figuring that there really wasn’t much else he could do with it—and he had a suspicion that she somehow _knew_ that he’d just be stalling for time if he’d tried to think up more for it.

She skimmed it and raised an eyebrow. “Not much on here.”

“Well, it _was_ just a rental,” John retorted. “Most of my stuff is in my hotel room, thank god.”

“It might not be for long,” she replied casually, setting the form to one side. Cold panic washed over John as he realised what she meant—and in the next breath, she confirmed his fears by saying, “If they _did_ take your wallet, ID, cell phone, and car, I don’t see why they wouldn’t take your room key as well. Based on all the mistakes they’ve made so far, your carjackers don’t seem too smart—it’s possible they might’ve turned around and raided your room once they realised they had access to easy pickings. You should tell me your hotel room number, then we could kill two birds with one stone.”

She smiled again, with a slightly predatory glint.

This was horrible. Why did he think he could get away with this? He might’ve had better luck telling her the whole truth and letting her think he was intoxicated. Maybe he still could do that. No…that would probably make it worse at this point. He’d already dug his hole; he could only keep digging.

“But why would they do that?” he tried to divert. “If they just wanted to rob me, I think they’d stop off at my room to steal my things first, _then_ drive off to another state, wouldn’t they? I doubt they’d turn around just for that.”

“We don’t know that they _won’t_ do that, or that they didn’t already do that while you were unconscious,” she countered, her eyes narrowing. “We have to take all the possibilities in hand, and that is our first possible lead, Dr. Watson. Besides, it’ll be worth knowing that the rest of your possessions are safe, won’t it?”

“Yes, well…you’re right about that,” John said. Was it too late to fake amnesia? …Damn, it was.

Drosselmeyer waited like a grizzly in a stream, anticipating the salmon to leap into her mouth. “Remind me: what was your hotel chain again?” she asked.

John sighed internally and struggled to remember what he’d told her before. “Best Western, and…I think it was room 122.”

She wrote down the numbers then immediately reached for her desk phone with her bad hand and started typing a search on her idle desk computer with the other.

“You’re—right _now_?!” John yelped.

“Of course,” she replied, giving him an inscrutable look. “The sooner we know if anyone’s been through, the sooner we can catch them.”

Wonderful. He chuckled a bit hopelessly. “You really _don’t_ take breaks, do you?”

“I have all of Sabbath for that,” she retorted, already dialling the Best Western’s office number.

As John waited to be arrested, he couldn’t help dismally musing that Sherlock probably would’ve well tolerated Drosselmeyer—she was relentless and clever enough to be considered ‘competent’ by Sherlockian standards. He wondered what Sherlock would’ve done if he were in John’s place right now.

Possibly, he would’ve asked for the loo ages ago and tripped the smoke alarm whilst he was in there, then he’d weasel himself into a pilfered disguise in the confusion and vanish into the night, stealing a bus for good measure. Yup. That’s what Sherlock would’ve done. Shame John hadn’t thought of that—it would’ve been so much simpler. If Sherlock were listening in on him now with his preternatural psychicness, he was probably shaking his head and calling him an idiot.

An eerie sense of calm settled over John, knowing he was about to be caught in his own lie and unable to do much about it but push forward. It was a feeling he recognised all too well, and he welcomed it as if it were his own grotesque shadow—he’d felt it before numerous times, whenever things seemed all too hopeless, or when his list of options completely ran out, and it made him move efficiently through the fog of life with a peculiar mental clarity and remove from emotion that he would always afterward regard with a vague sense of unease.

He watched calmly as Drosselmeyer eventually got hold of the Best Western in Livingston, watched as her mouth moved to ask questions, watched as her brow furrowed slightly in mild confusion while triumph sparked in her eyes, watched her set down the phone and turn to him with her hands folded in front of her.

“Interesting thing, Dr. Watson, but the hotel says it has no record of anyone checking into room 122 for more than three weeks, nor has it any record of you checking into that hotel at all. Did you perhaps mistake the name of your hotel?” she asked.

John thought it was rather generous of her to pretend to give him the benefit of a doubt. He merely shrugged in response. Her eyebrows knit together.

“Tell me the truth, Dr. Watson,” she said, not unkindly, but nevertheless with a firm edge of command. “Were you ever in Livingston during the past forty-eight hours?”

John smiled dimly. “I was.”

“If not at that hotel, then where?” she urged.

He shrugged again. “All over.”

Her jaw clenched. John figured that she probably thought he was mocking her. “Is there anyone that can confirm that you were there?” she all but snapped.

“Probably not,” John admitted.

“Then why did you lie to me?”

“Because you wouldn’t believe me if I told you the whole truth,” he replied.

She was openly glaring at him now, mouth a thin line. “There is an innocent old woman in the hospital right now, _doctor_ —if you even are one—and by refusing to help me, you are refusing to help her. You spent nearly half an hour keeping her alive before the paramedics arrived, so I highly doubt you meant her any harm. If it was a simple accident, you should tell me _now_. Tell me everything.”

John sighed, a pang of conscience filtering through the apathetic calm. “I want to help you, if I can,” he said. “Because I don’t think it was an accident what happened to her. Not all of it, anyway. But I can’t tell you everything, because _honestly_ , you wouldn’t believe the truth.”

“Then what part of it was an accident?” she barked.

“The head injury,” he said. She looked about to jump down his throat at that, and he hastened to add, “As to how she got all the way out there and why, I’ve no idea. But _that_ seems like no accident to me—she looked dressed for a party, her breath smelled of alcohol, and her family all showed up at the hospital pretty quickly so she was probably with them not that long ago at their house in town. She wouldn’t’ve gone missing from them so easily, I’d imagine, or get so _very_ far away without them noticing sooner.” He smiled grimly. “Drunks aren’t exactly known for their speed.”

Drosselmeyer frowned at him, seeming to gauge his honesty. “So you admit to being involved in the accident that caused her head injury?” she asked at last.

John cast his eyes down, looked back up, and tilted his head. “I think…I’d better ask for a lawyer before I answer that.”

She scowled. “That is all but _admitting_ that you were.”

“I think we’ll let the lawyer decide that,” he answered. He glanced at her desk and pointed a finger at her corded telephone. “Can I borrow your phone?”

They stared each other down; John could see the frustration and anger in her eyes as clearly as if she were reaching for him with claws outstretched and teeth bared. At last she relented, shoving the phone over to his side of the desk and seething, “I’m obligated to tell you that your call may be monitored on that line. There is an alternate line you can use if you want it.”

“Ta, this’ll do fine,” John said mildly, picking up the receiver. He paused, finger hovering over a button. “It’s going to be international,” he told her apologetically, but she just waved her bad hand at him dismissively, picking up her long-abandoned coffee thermos and gnawing on the rim—a habit John recognised from Sherlock’s nicotine cravings.

John dialled and waited. Eventually, he heard it ringing, and he closed his eyes, praying that it would be picked up, worrying that it would be ignored or considered spam. Would he even be able to leave a message if there were no answer? John felt a brief surge of panic, because if that were the case, then he’d _really_ have no other options—but then, blessedly, he heard the soft blip of the other end being picked up.

“Whomever is calling, you should be aware that this number is not made available to commercial businesses or to the general public at large, let alone any persons at…1402 River View Drive, Cody, Wyoming, The United States of America. Explain how you got this number, or I will be forced to take action that you will find extremely unpleasant.”

John almost smiled. “Hello, Mycroft. Merry Christmas.”


	19. The Past, Present, and Future

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** : Please be advised that this chapter contains potentially **disturbing imagery** that may be upsetting for some readers. For anyone who needs further details before proceeding, please consult the END NOTES below for further (somewhat spoilery) details on what the imagery contains. Thank you!

An extremely _ruffled_ silence greeted John, and he almost wished he could see the look on Mycroft’s face. There was a heavy sigh. John guessed he was face-palming.

“ _Oh good lord_ ,” Mycroft groaned. “Is it possible for me to have solitude for one Christmas without having to involve myself in a crisis?”

“It wouldn’t _be_ a crisis if you’d—never mind,” John started, catching the eye of the ever-watchful Detective Drosselmeyer, who was pretending to politely ignore him. “I think I should warn you this call is being monitored.”

“Thank you, I am aware,” Mycroft replied, sounding quite bored about it. He was probably having the call monitored on his own end as well.

“Anyway, I’ve had a bit of a misunderstanding with the local police here, and I could use some help,” John went on.

“I am not an unlimited resource, John,” Mycroft replied evenly. “Even I have my barriers and constraints.”

“Oh, come off it,” John huffed, _knowing_ that the git was being intractable for no good reason other than his own laziness and self-importance. “What do you want, then?”

“The same as always. Reassurance.”

He meant about Sherlock. “You have it,” John replied, licking his lips and crossing his legs as he leant back in the chair, receiver still to his ear. “Though you’ll have it _more_ if you can help me out of here.”

“Of course,” Mycroft punctuated. “Though I _do_ have my limitations, you understand. You’ve called at an inconvenient time for me: most of my resources are currently tied up elsewhere, and to find some at short notice on Christmas Day would be nothing short of a miracle.”

“Well, you’ve had practice conjuring those, haven’t you?” John snipped. “Thanks for the heads-up on that, by the way.”

“I wasn’t aware one was needed,” he said, sounding genuinely surprised. “Have there been difficulties?”

John wanted to laugh, because ‘difficulties’ was _such_ an understatement; however, he saw Drosselmeyer eyeing him, and she cast a finger to her ballerina watch.

“Look, are you going to help or not?”

Mycroft sighed. “Give me twenty-four hours; something will turn up for you by then. In the meanwhile, hand me over.”

John raised an eyebrow, then held the receiver out to Drosselmeyer. “He wants to talk to you.”

“I’m sure he does,” she replied dryly, taking the receiver, then reciting, “This is Detective Drosselmeyer, Cody Police Station. How can I help you?”

She listened, and John watched as she raised one eyebrow, then another. “I highly doubt that, sir,” she said at one point. Then, “I would have to confirm that information with my Chief of Police, and he is currently on vacation,” followed by a hard “Goodnight, sir” as she hung up. She gave John a deeply suspicious look.

“Your friend makes many interesting claims,” she stated. “We’ll see how true they are in time.”

“Does this mean you’re not arresting me?” John asked.

“No, I’m still taking you into custody for the time being,” she said. “You’ve given me probable cause to suspect your involvement, and as far as I’m concerned, you’re deliberately obstructing justice. Besides, you don’t seem to have anywhere else to stay tonight, and I can’t have my only witness wandering off to who-knows-where.” She shuffled papers together into a pile and glared at him as if to shame him into confessing. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about telling me the truth, which would save everyone involved a lot of time and money.”

“And miss out on all this?” John said, rolling his eyes to encompass the small forest of cheesy desk trees, the ancient water cooler, and Sherlock’s bloody coat. “It just wouldn’t be Christmas.”

***

The bench of a holding cell wasn’t a step up from a shelter cot by any stretch of the imagination, but at least it was quiet. Predictably enough, no one else was with John—not even Drosselmeyer, who more or less left him alone as she continued her investigation elsewhere (after giving John half an order of Chinese for lunch and another reheated half at dinner). John didn’t mind the quiet for once: it annoyed him that he couldn’t do anything at the moment—it was counterproductive to try to escape while Mycroft was sending help—but after all the excitement of the past fifty-some-odd hours, he finally had a chance to let his guard down and properly rest.

So he lay down across the bench, closed his eyes, and let himself think of idle things.

The first being that he was spending all of Christmas Day alone in a holding cell, which was rather depressing. It wasn’t actually the _worst_ Christmas he’d ever had, but it ranked high up there on The Worst Christmas List just for that reason alone. With the way things had been going, John had been picturing a relaxing day of mistletoe kisses and sleepy snuggles under the covers with Detective Christmas. Instead he had a cold, unforgiving bench…and some small voice at the back of John’s head told him that he should have expected this. A ‘TV holiday special’ sort of Christmas was not something that was _actually_ Sherlock-compatible.

The second thing John realised—or rather, remembered—was that approximately twenty-four hours ago he’d had sex with Sherlock. Then afterwards they’d broken into millions of homes and reverse-stolen toys, and now John was behind bars after they’d run over an old woman in a reindeer sleigh. John was pretty sure this was not how afterglows were supposed to go. God help them if they ever got married; who knows what havoc they’d unleash during the honeymoon.

The third thing John realised was that there was an odd brightness glowing beyond his closed eyelids coming from the cell door. Blearily, he opened his eyes and turned his head, then started upright.

It was a slender, ghostly hand simply floating in the air, beckoning him forward.

John blinked, then rubbed hard at his eyes. He looked again. The hand was still there, curling its index finger for John to come forward. He’d know those fingers anywhere.

“…Sherlock?” John whispered, squinting against the glow.

The glowing hand faded into the darkness, and John heard the faint click of the door unlocking. His eyes widened, and he shot up from the bench, then cautiously pushed on the bars. The door opened, with the softest of creaks.

John experimentally poked his head through the opening and, after not being instantly decapitated, stepped out, looking from side to side in the empty corridors.

The hand reappeared a few metres to his left, beckoning once again. John slowly went to it. But as soon as he got close, the hand would disappear, only to reappear again several metres away, ever-beckoning. John followed.

It led him right, left, left, right, straight, backwards, down a set of stairs, left, right, right, right… John looked around and realised he had no idea where he was. There weren’t any doors or even any hall lights—not even a measly bulletin board. Just a long, long hallway with turns coming off its sides, and a beckoning hand.

“Where are we?” John whispered, looking over his shoulder at a vast darkness, then looking back—and gasping.

_Thousands and thousands of hands._

All beckoning urgently—practically snapping their wrists with the force, beckoning, beckoning, faster and faster.

John turned and ran.

Fingers snatched at his clothes and hair, pinching, snagging, pulling, and he tore away from them, elbowed them back—but they grabbed his arms, pulled, pulled, _pulled_ until he couldn’t move—

—and suddenly, there was a figure emerging from the blackness in front of him, and it was Sherlock, but his head was _on fire_ , and John shouted his name. It snapped its eyes towards him, and John felt an indescribable _zing_ of blind recognition—the sharp, swirling twin balls of white fire where its eyes should be—and it rushed him.

John yelled, but the entity had already collided with him face-first, and John felt his mouth and eyes burn with heat. Even worse, he felt it somehow _go through_ him, and everything was on fire for seconds, minutes, who knew?—and then, abruptly, he was alone in the cold, cold shadows. No hands, no fire.

John fell to his hands and knees, sweating and quaking with fear, but he felt an unfamiliar jostling at his hip and leg and heard the sound of metal scraping against hardwood. His hand flew to his side, only to discover that a naked sword was tied to his belt. Brow furrowed, he slowly got back up on his feet with a soft, soft chiming, like the sound of stardust falling through an hourglass. A heavy weight pressed down on his head, and he cautiously raised a hand to his temple and felt the sharp points of a jewelled circlet resting against his hair. This seemed suspiciously familiar.

Again to his right he sensed a bright glow, but when he turned to look, it wasn’t a disembodied hand: it was the golden outlines of a door cracked open with warm light flooding through it, and from the opening John could hear the pleasant crackle of a simple cooking fire and smell sweetness, wine, and roasting meat. It filled him with a sense of welcome and comfort, and a curious twinge beneath his ribs made him feel as though he’d seen such a sight many, many times, with each sighting more overflowing with affection than before.

He went without hesitation, opening the door with nary a knock.

It could’ve been their bedroom back at the North Pole with its merry little fireplace and rich, ancient wood planking the floors and walls, but for the fact that it was _lush_ with verdantry—sprigs of holly, evergreen branches, ivy, clumps of mistletoe—so plentiful that the eyes overflowed trying to contain it all. Dishes of every kind of rich, fattening food were scattered haphazardly throughout, still steaming gently with warmth, perfuming the air with mouth-watering spices.

In the middle of it all was Sherlock, lounging resplendent in a great armchair, but not as he’d been for the many weeks of being Father Christmas. Here his hair shone a vibrant chestnut, and he wore a deep green robe draped somewhat loosely over his body and a crown of holly-and-icicles nestled crookedly within his curls. He gave John a lazy, feline sort of smile, and the green of his eyes _popped_ with an unusual vividness, like the flash of a bright bird’s wings in snow. He was utterly still, as though suspended in time.

“…Sherlock?” John queried, uncertain.

The smile stretched, and with a slight movement, the green robe dripped off a bare shoulder and pooled to an elbow. “Come and know me better, man,” Sherlock rumbled. [30]

John gulped and thought about hesitating, except his legs were moving for him and he was now standing in front of Sherlock; it simply felt like the right thing to do. He smiled down at him.

Sherlock’s eyes dipped and flitted back up to John’s face. “You’re late, my dear.”

“It couldn’t be helped,” John replied. “But you know I always come when you call.” John blinked at the ease of his own response, wondering why he’d said it—even though, on saying it, he felt it to be true.

Sherlock hummed, a light smile still in place, and touched the hem of John’s coat between two fingers. “This is fetching. More so than the shapeless things you usually wear, hoary one.”

John frowned, looking down at his clothing and discovering that he was wearing…what looked like his St. Lucia’s Day outfit, but shining brightly with silver and gold. He looked back up and found Sherlock smirking at him. “Are you calling me old?” John asked, brow furrowed.

Sherlock didn’t reply, instead tracing his hand down to the warm skin of John’s thigh and plucking at a strap holding up his leggings, causing John to jump slightly. “Very fetching indeed,” he purred, curling his hand around and up under the coat to teasingly caress the skin of a bare buttock.

Suddenly, John felt a sort of raucous energy and odd reverence rush through him—and his hand shot out and cupped Sherlock’s cheek. But then he saw that _his fingernails were on fire_ , and in a panic tried to pull away to stop from burning his beloved—only for Sherlock to quickly raise his hand and press John’s palm firmly to his face, the bright green of his eyes fixed unwaveringly on him. He nuzzled into John’s hand, seemingly unfazed by the little flames licking at his skin and hair.

Some part of John realised that something was odd about this, but a larger and infinitely more powerful part of him was too smitten to really notice, or care. “You sprite,” John murmured, feeling far, far away, but so very near, with blood pounding in his skin and in the skin of the creature before him. “You call this shambling pile of ashes ‘fetching’ when _you’re_ the brightest thing in the room.”

Sherlock absently sucked a burning thumb between his lips in a wet sort of kiss, then turned his head slightly to draw it back out. “Every part of you is a part of me,” he said, “and I couldn’t shine without your light.”

A clock chimed somewhere.

A spark of urgency lit in Sherlock’s eyes, banishing the languidness from before. “It is late,” he said. “Please – put that away, while there’s time.” His head and eyes tilted down and to the side, indicating John’s sword.

“Huh, this? Where?” John said, reaching for the handle.

“Where else?” Sherlock replied, pulling up something that had been resting unnoticed in between the seat cushion and the armrest of the chair. It was an ancient, rusting scabbard, girded very loosely around Sherlock’s middle. Sherlock waggled his eyebrows at him. [31]

“You bad man,” John smirked, tearing the sword from its bindings at his hip, then sliding it carefully into the rusted scabbard. Once it hit home, John suddenly had a mouthful of Sherlock, and they rolled backwards out of the chair and down a hill in each other’s arms, laughing.

When they came to a stop, vision spinning, the aurora in the night sky above them was dancing ecstatically and the earth beneath them was damp as if from a summer rainfall. Sherlock’s crown of holly and icicles had fallen off an arm’s length away, and his already loose robe was half off him; he laughed in a way that John had never heard before, a deep belly laugh so unlike Sherlock’s usual quiet chuckle. John twined his fiery fingers into the chestnut curls, marvelling how they didn’t seem to burn, and Sherlock butted into the touch like a cat, eyes glowing with pleasure.

Sherlock grabbed John’s arm and pulled him closer, and John obliged, settling comfortably on top of him and distantly noting by the damp earth against his knees that his odd leggings must have come off somewhere in the roll down the hill. Thick, heavy grass pressed against his palms, and Sherlock grinned up at him, surrounded in green.

John smiled softly back at him, and his heartbeat was echoing inside his ribs, ringing as if a thousand bells were there instead of just one. He smoothed a hand across Sherlock’s cheek once more, swiping a flaming fingertip across his plush lips.

“How’s it so green here?” John murmured, half to himself.

Sherlock’s eyes flashed with a queer magnetism to rival that of the northern lights. “All of this is mine,” he rumbled, lifting a hand to John’s neck, pulling him down, “I am a promise—of life in death.” He kissed John then, fiercely.

John nearly quailed at the power rushing through the being beneath him; he could taste it on his tongue like the air before a thunderstorm, but before he could think, he responded with some starved hunger he didn’t know he had, kissing back like the world was about to end. It felt like it was.

Sherlock had his arms and legs around him; John could feel his slender hands desperately tearing at his silver-gold jacket and his nails against his skin. John himself couldn’t get enough of Sherlock to hold, squeeze, caress, and when his own two hands were full, he suddenly had more hands, and more hands, and more hands, and even at twenty hands it didn’t feel like enough, he wanted to hold _everything_ , never let this bright creature feel the cold, never let go. And why—why was time so _short?_

“ _God, I’ve missed you_ ,” John sobbed, one of his hearts squeezing painfully, sick with longing, with relief, and it’d only been a day without him but it felt like a year, _it had been a year_ , it’d been so many years, ages and ages of living like this, without him and with him, _he was going mad_.

Sherlock was murmuring something soothing to him, kissing him, when a clock chimed somewhere.

“ _Hurry_ ,” Sherlock groaned, voice hoarse. “ _Hurry, cleave to me, please, hurry._ ”

John did so unthinkingly, and his heart burst into fireworks. They moved together, fast and instinctual, as if they’d done this hundreds and hundreds of times before, like they were running hand in hand from something at their back, and John felt like he would always taste the sweetness on Sherlock’s tongue, the salt above his lip, that he had to burn Sherlock’s hot-breathed gasps and moans into his mind _now_ or lose them forever—

A clock gonged somewhere, and it sounded warped, sick. Fear pierced his soul.

“ _No!_ ” Sherlock cried, eyes flying open and immediately connecting with John’s. They were Sherlock’s own, natural, oceanic hue. He reached for him. “ _Joh—!_ ”

Sherlock’s face froze, turned stark white, and broke apart in a thousand pieces, along with the rest of him, falling and scattering into snow.

“ _Sherlock,_ ” John whispered, horrified. He frantically reached into the pile of snow that was rapidly blowing away, trying to keep the pieces together. “No! Oh god, no, _oh god_ …”

A bitter wind swept the last of it away. John stared emptily at the barren ground below him. Sherlock was gone…just like that… _gone_ , and John had been helpless to stop it. The wind roared at his back, and he placed a hand in the dead grass where Sherlock had been. It was already cold.

John shivered, inhaled a breath of air that stabbed into his lungs like icicles, and wept.

He didn’t know how long he knelt there, but eventually in the roar of the wind and the numbing cold of his legs he acknowledged that he had to move. Where, it didn’t matter, but he couldn’t stay here, couldn’t keep staying where Sherlock wasn’t.

He stumbled blindly into the dark forest, snow crystals whipping into his eyes. The fires on his fingernails had sizzled into coal-black crusts, and he was lost and alone, hurt and heartsick.

Then he heard the whispers.

Soft and distant at first, blips of syllables cut off by the wind. But they grew closer, and they were tiny, high-pitched.

One voice was just a pitiful moan, some poor creature that had no recourse but to cry in its agony till it could finally die. But the other was laughing, snide and mocking, and it was this voice that finally drew John out of the fog of grief.

“ _You’re not dying, you pathetic little boy,_ ” said the voice.

The second voice responded to the first with a piteous moan.

“ _You’re so **boring** ,_” said the first again. “ _No wonder nobody cares about you._ ”

Another moan.

“Who’s there?” John whispered, shivering.

Silence greeted him, followed by a rapid pattering of footsteps coming towards him.

“ _I don’t know!_ ” said the first voice, and it shrieked into high-pitched giggles.

John whipped around, trying to locate the source of the voice in the blizzard. There was nothing but shadows. “Where are you?” he tried again.

The first voice again screeched with laughter. “ _I don’t know!_ ”

The second voice groaned loudly.

“ _Shut up, you. Nobody cares about you, remember?_ ” the first voice snapped.

“What’s wrong with him?” John said softly, still trying to find them in the shadows.

The voice moaned again, only to be cut off by its companion saying, “ _Nothing’s wrong with him, he’s just a cry-baby. You wouldn’t know how to help him anyway._ ”

“I’m a doctor,” John murmured, stepping forward in what might be the right direction.

The first voice seemed to find this funny, since it set off another hyena-like peal. “ _Doctors! What do they know? All they do is make you sick!_ ”

“No, I can help,” John protested quietly, then felt another sob rise into his throat, recalling just how useless he’d been to help the one person who mattered most. Maybe the voice was right; he _was_ useless. He shook his head desperately. “I can help!” he pleaded.

Suddenly, two small, bony hands seized his ankles, their claws digging painfully into his flesh. John gasped and nearly looked down—but then he had an instant, visceral feeling that he shouldn’t. He stared straight ahead into the storm and tried to control his racing heartbeat.

The voice by his right ankle groaned loudly and clawed at his leg. John flinched, nearly looking down again. He clenched his jaw and gulped, every hair on his skin standing on end.

“ _See? I told you he wouldn’t caaaaaare,_ ” the voice at his left ankle taunted the other. “ _Nobody knows what’s wrong with you, you pathetic little boy._ ” It scratched at John’s knee. “ _Hey, hey, do you think I’m pretty?_ ” it asked.

John breathed shallowly through his nose and fixed his gaze on a tree. He couldn’t look down. He couldn’t. The claws on his left dug in deeper, the voice becoming a high-pitched wheedling for attention.

Then John heard a distinct word from the voice on his right, gasped in a dry, painful rattle—“ _Help_ ”—and that’s when he finally looked down.

He screamed.

Two figures purpled with frostbite clung to his ankles: on the right a child so skeletal it looked mummified, with a black hole for a mouth taking up half its face; on the left a wispy, papery-looking girl with buttons where her eyes should be, grinning maniacally up at him with a toothless sneer.

John kicked, but they just tightened their grip.

“ _GET OFF, GET OFF!_ ” he shrieked, trying to stumble away from them, but they weighed him down like two gruesome shackles. “ _LET GO!_ ”

The girl just laughed and laughed and laughed; the boy stared blindly at him with eyes long since dead. “LET **GO!** ” John roared, and with a last mighty kick he managed to get them off of him, and he turned and ran.

“ _WHO’S A DOCTOR? WHO’S A DOCTOR?_ ” he could hear the girl screeching after him, followed by her insane laughter. But her shrieks were not ultimately what caused him to slow down; long after he had lost the sound of her voice in the wind, John could still hear the heartbroken wails of the skeleton boy echoing through the trees, and it was this wordless cry that finally made him stumble to a stop and curse himself, tears in his eyes. He knew then that he was a coward, and he couldn’t do anything to change it—whether he fought against it or not, whether he overcame it or not; it was a part of him that could never be removed, and it always had been.

But worse still, he was useless, just as useless as the girl had said, and just as useless as he’d been to Sherlock.

He stopped moving, and closed his eyes. He waited and listened to the wind.

But even this respite soon left him; the wind died down and he was left with bitter, cold silence. He clenched his hands at his sides. Time was working against him: too fast when he wanted it to last, paused completely when he wanted it to go.

He heard the soft, quiet breaths of someone who had no tears to shed, but who was trying all the same.

John didn’t want to open his eyes. He didn’t want this to keep going. He’d had enough. But still he heard the person tearlessly weeping, and he couldn’t pretend not to hear them anymore. He opened his eyes.

A short distance away, he saw what he thought must be a woman with long, white hair standing over two gravestones and a tree stump, her head bent forward in grief. He knew her.

“Mum? Mrs. Holmes?” he whispered, stepping forward cautiously. “What are you doing here?”

She froze, then turned her head.

John gasped and took an involuntary step back.

Her head was nothing but a skull—or, on looking again, nothing but white flurries swirling in the image of a skull, like flour thrown onto a ghost to make it visible. She looked out at him through two black hollows with a single flake spinning in each of their centres. The skeletal, snowy outlines of her hands lowered from where they’d been in front of her face, and as she turned to fully face him, John saw that in the centre of her ribcage there pulsed a vibrant red heart, which dripped steaming blood through a melted hole.

Somehow, he knew that he was looking at Snegurochka Holmes how she once had been—or perhaps, as she might become.

“ _It always comes in threes, you know,_ ” she murmured, turning slightly to look back at the graves. “ _It’ll be the same for you, too._ ”

John gulped and took a step forward. “What does?” he said, unnerved, though no longer afraid.

“ _You’ll be too late,_ ” she replied. Her heart pumped, and a fresh splatter of blood fell into the snow. She raised a hand over it as though it pained her, but the heat of the organ melted her hand away. “ _You’ll be too late._ ”

John felt the warmth leave his face. “Too late for what?”

She shook her head, the silvery snow of her hair fanning around her. She pointed a bony finger at the grave nearest her.

John shook his head rapidly, refusing to look down. “Too late for what?!” he repeated.

A clock gonged somewhere.

“ _You’re out of time,_ ” she said, and John woke up just as his eyes fixed on the name written across the obsidian stone.

He looked frantically around the holding cell, his breaths coming hard and quick. It was utterly quiet, the way any vacant building at three in the morning would be, but John thought he could still hear Mummy Holmes’s quiet sobs and the skeleton boy’s distant wails echoing from the corners of the room. He shakily pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes and rocked back and forth, sick with the horrible, unmistakeable feeling that something was wrong.

* * *

[30] “The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove, from every part of which, bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there…. "Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost. "Come in! and know me better, man!" …. It was clothed in one simple deep green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free” – Charles Dickens, _A Christmas Carol_ : “Stave 3: The Second of the Three Spirits” (1843)

[31] “Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.” – Charles Dickens, _A Christmas Carol_ : “Stave 3: The Second of the Three Spirits” (1843).  A better man than I would not have read this line and thought “this could be a sex metaphor,” but I am not that man, folks.  It is also my Mission to utterly destroy Charles Dickens’s ghost by tearing apart his good intentions with my bare, gay hands.  Victory will be mine, Dicky.  _Victory will be mine_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings Cont’d** : Disturbing imagery/literal nightmare fuel includes dream-based depictions of body horror, gore, disembodied limbs, creepy entities, a sort-of chase scene, and children suffering. If this will be distressing for you, it’s safe to read up to “It was a slender, ghostly hand…” then skip right on over to the very end and begin again with “She shook her head, the silvery snow of her hair…” You should be able to at least get the gist of what’s going on with that, I think. Happy reading!


	20. December 26

It had been Sherlock’s name on the gravestone, of course. He’d known before he’d even looked, the way one usually knows such things in dreams. The problem was, John was having a hard time reassuring himself that it’d just been a dream. He paced restlessly in his cell; Drosselmeyer picked up on his agitation easily.

“Are you feeling all right?” she asked, holding a McDonald’s bag in one hand.

“Do you even go home?” he snapped, then apologised offhandedly, not really in the mood to be civil.

She frowned, and John nearly rolled his eyes, figuring that he wasn’t doing anything to convince her that he wasn’t an unhinged vet who occasionally bludgeoned little old ladies in the middle of nowhere.

But he had to _move_ —he couldn’t just keep sitting here idly when something may have happened to Sherlock.

She pushed the bag of food through the bars, and he took it without thanking her. He wasn’t hungry, but the sooner he stopped giving her a reason to stick around, the sooner she would leave him in peace.

She did.

***

“Your lawyer’s here,” Drosselmeyer said, and John looked up from his hands, from which he’d been restlessly picking at his hangnails. The McDonald’s bag rested unopened beside him.

His lawyer looked like one of Mycroft’s usual assistants: brunette with brown eyes, black professional-wear, and otherwise nondescript appearance—except she had a bright, toothy smile. It made her look ages younger, and standing next to a grim-faced Drosselmeyer, she looked like a Vegas sign.

“Hello, Dr. Watson,” his lawyer said. “How are you feeling?”

He blinked, then shrugged. “As well as can be expected.”

“They’ve been treating you all right?” she asked.

John’s eyes flicked to Drosselmeyer, who’d frowned at the question, clearly a bit insulted at the implication. “Yeah, of course,” he replied.

“Good!” she chirped, then turned to Drosselmeyer. “Well, I think we’d like one of those private rooms now, Detective.”

“Of course,” Drosselmeyer said stiffly, unlocking the door to the cell. “Right this way.”

Once they’d been settled in a windowless room and the lawyer had promised to fetch Drosselmeyer when they were done talking, she turned to John with a smile that was somehow a few watts brighter than the first one. John was a bit confused by it.

“Sorry! I forgot to introduce myself,” she said, sticking out a hand, which John shook lightly. “My name’s Tam Winters. So…” She jauntily rested her chin on her fist and cocked her head, amusement dancing in her eyes. “…Mycroft tells me that you can be trusted, but I’d rather figure that out for myself. What’s your story?”

“Er…” John said intelligently, squinting at her bubbly demeanour. How much had Mycroft told her? “I’m not sure what I can tell you that you’d believe.”

“Well, can you tell me if it was an accident or not?”

“Oh. Yes. Yeah, it was an accident.”

“Oh, _good,_ ” she sighed with relief. “I hate the intentional ones. I don’t do those.” She paused. “So what _did_ you do, then?”

“How much about this do you know already?” John asked, feeling more disconcerted about Tam Winters the more he talked to her. She almost sounded like a child, the way she had a strange…enthusiasm in her voice and expression, in light of the situation. It almost reminded him of Sherlock at a crime scene.

“ _Well,_ ” she began, her eyes going up and to the side as she was recalling something, “Mycroft told me it was a family matter, that Sherlock was involved, and that you were probably at least mostly innocent, and he wanted me to get you out as soon as possible. He said I’d get more details from you.”

John blinked in surprise. “You know Sherlock and Mycroft?”

“Yep,” she confirmed. “We’re, uh, distant cousins. On the French side of the family. We saw each other at reunions in the summer when we were kids.”

John didn’t even know Sherlock _had_ ‘a French side of the family.’ He couldn’t immediately think of how to reply to this information other than to say, “You don’t sound French.”

She wrinkled her nose playfully. “ _Je suis canadienne,_ ” she replied. “And I took my husband’s name.”

“Oh,” John said.

“So _here’s_ a question for you—Mycroft said this was a family matter involving Sherlock, but _he’s_ clearly not here and I don’t know you at all; so how do you figure?” she asked.

“Uh…” he began, suddenly wondering if Mycroft had somehow deduced the change in his and Sherlock’s relationship over the phone, which is something John would not put past the omniscient git. “Well…” he started again, now wondering if Tam even _knew_ about the Father Christmas thing and if he was allowed to tell her about that. He had no idea how far along the family line the secret was kept.

Tam’s eyes widened, then sparkled. “Oh! Are you and Sherlock—?” She waved a finger to and fro.

John scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, you could…you could say that, yeah. We are.”

“Oh, how nice!” Tam cheered, then something seemed to click inside her. “Ohh, so you probably… _that_ explains what you’re doing out here, then,” she said, sobering a little. “So something happened on the sleigh run. Is Sherlock okay?”

John frowned, remembering last night’s dream. “I…I don’t really know; I mean, I think he made it back to the North Pole okay, but—wait, you know about the Father Christmas thing?”

She chuckled. “Of course! I mean—” She tucked her hair behind one ear, which John saw was ever-so-slightly…pointed. “—if they didn’t explain this to us early on, we’d be thinking we were demons or something.”

John gaped. “You’re an elf!”

Tam laughed brightly and shook her head, untucking her hair so it fell forward and covered her ear again. “No, no! Well—not exactly. My great-grandpa was, though.”

_That explains a lot_ , John thought, then he wondered how that would _work_ …before quickly deciding that he didn’t want to know how that would work. Nevertheless, it was a relief he didn’t have to hide anything from her; keeping up the lie was exhausting.

“This does make everything a lot easier to explain,” he sighed, some of the tension leaving his body.

Tam laughed softly. “I’ll bet it does,” she agreed. “Oh, by the way—” She pulled out a plastic packet from her purse, which contained John’s passport, photocopies of his various IDs, a new credit card, and a few other odds and ends. “—Mycroft said you might be needing these.”

***

As John finished his story, Tam sighed. “I’ve gotta tell you, John, you haven’t exactly made this easy for yourself.”

“I know,” John sighed back. “I guess I got too caught up in it.”

“Mm, well, I suppose you’ve gotten used to working _with_ cops rather than opposite them if you’ve been assisting Sherlock, so it’s not all that surprising you’d have trouble holding up an alibi,” she replied.

She wasn’t _completely_ wrong about that: he certainly hadn’t told the police anything about who’d shot the cabbie, but then again, they’d never asked him (and Greg seemed to be in favour of turning a blind eye to John’s illegal gun ownership if Dartmoor was anything to go by). Sherlock, on the other hand…well, John had long since learnt not to even try to attempt a lie on Sherlock; the git seemed to know truths about him before _John_ even knew about them, so tired honesty was something of a default nowadays. He could collaborate on a lie well enough if Sherlock was leading it, but fostering one on his own was a bit more difficult. He sighed again.

“So what do we do about the detective?” John asked.

Tam lit up again. “Well, fortunately for us, she doesn’t _actually_ have any solid evidence to hold against you—and she knows that, too, which is why she’s pushing so hard to make you confess something. She probably thinks you’re covering up for someone at this point, so she’ll be stressing on that today.”

“Well, she’s not wrong,” John muttered unhappily.

“Yup,” Tam chirped. “And that’s what you’re going to tell her.”

John stared at her. “You want me to—you want me to _actually_ tell her Sherlock did it?”

“Yup,” she repeated. “Technically, he was the ‘driver,’ so responsibility for hitting Mrs. Bigerce mostly rests with him. On the other hand, all _you’ve_ done is keep Mrs. Bigerce alive on your own and try to protect a loved one, so—easy enough—say the driver was your boyfriend and you felt conflicted about turning him in. Legally, I suppose she could charge you with falsifying information and obstructing justice after that, but she doesn’t seem wholly unreasonable to me, so I think she’ll understand as long as you fess up everything important and cooperate from here on out. Besides, I’m sure Mycroft’s already working out how to erase you from their records as we speak, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

John blinked. “What?”

“She’ll redirect her focus to trying to find Sherlock, then, and more than likely let you go. She can’t legally still keep you here after that, though she’ll try to call you with follow-up questions.”

“No, no, I got _that_ , but—” He rubbed his face with both hands and looked incredulously back at her. “—you are telling me that you want me to throw Sherlock under a bus. You _know_ that would catch up with him eventually. I can’t do that. It’s out of the question.”

“Who said you had to name _Sherlock?_ ” Tam replied, grinning widely. “Give a different name. I mean, for all I know, maybe you’ve had hundreds of boyfriends.”

“ _I’ve not_ —” John spluttered.

“Maybe one of your boyfriends you met while in the army,” she bulldozed over him. “Who _coincidentally_ worked in special ops, who _coincidentally_ doesn’t have many public records, whom Mycroft might _coincidentally_ inform the Cody Police Department is no longer available for investigation because of higher-up interference.”

“…Ah,” John said. “So you actually _do_ want me to lie again.”

She chuckled. “It wouldn’t be as much of a lie as you’re thinking—more like a _stretch_ , and letting her fill in the blanks. She won’t ask how you two met or anything. Besides, I’m sure Sherlock’s done a few odd jobs for Mycroft now and then, so you could consider him a part-time consulting spy. All you’ve got to do is say the boyfriend did it and let Mycroft do the rest.”

“I guess that’d make it easier,” John conceded, still a bit troubled by the whole thing. Running over Dorothy was an accident, sure, but there was still the question of how she’d got all the way out there in the first place. If there was someone else out there intentionally responsible for Dorothy Bigerce’s incapacitation, they could be walking free.

“What name should I give, then?” he asked at last.

She grinned, and there was something decidedly impish in it. “Here’s an idea—do you know what Sherlock’s real name is?”

John gave her a quizzical look. “That’s not his real name? It’s on all his cards, though.”

“It is—it’s one of the middle ones; the other one’s Scott, I think. But his first name is William.” Tam bubbled over giggling at the stunned expression John gave her. “Oh, he _hates_ it. All the aunts and uncles would always call him by it when he was little, and there were apparently at least five different Williams in his year. We used to call him ‘Bill’ to annoy him—he’d just _shriek._ ”

“Bill,” John repeated, unable to suppress the grin spreading across his face. “ _Bill._ ”

“Bill Scott, how does that sound for a name?” Tam asked him. “Think you can remember that?”

“Mrs. Winters, I don’t think I’m _ever_ going to forget that,” John replied.

She chuckled. But then her face turned solemn, and she added, “Oh, but there is one thing which you absolutely _must_ lie on, John—no ‘stretching.’ It’s important. If she asks you if you encouraged him to leave the scene or if you volunteered to be the fall guy—anything like that—you have to say no.”

“But I _did_ ask him to leave,” John said.

She nodded. “Yeah, I figured. But you _have_ to say no—you’ll be considered party to the hit-and-run otherwise. Do you understand?”

Her expression brooked no room for argument. John sighed, then nodded. “…Yes.”

***

“Your boyfriend,” Drosselmeyer repeated blankly, giving him an unimpressed look from across the table.

“Yes,” John said quietly.

She sighed and clicked her pen, setting it to paper. “His name?”

“Bill Scott. But I mean, he honestly didn’t mean any harm, and we weren’t drinking or anything, he just has this sort of…self-preservation instinct, and…well…” John gave her a sheepish look. “I guess I just…wasn’t thinking all that clearly, when I talked with you before. It was stupid of me.” Then he added, carefully, measuredly, because he knew rushing would just give him away, “He left before I could stop him, and—well, I was concentrating on keeping Mrs. Bigerce alive at the time, but afterwards I had no idea what to do.” He sighed, relieved to get the worst of it out of the way.

Drosselmeyer glared like a professor who’d discovered plagiarism in one of her student’s papers. “Why should I believe you?” she asked. Before he could make a comeback, she added, “You’ve sent me on a wild goose chase before, Dr. Watson. I don’t have the patience to do it again.”

“You have his coat,” John said. “You don’t think I normally go around wearing two coats, do you?”

“You told me you were in Livingston,” Drosselmeyer retorted.

John gulped, casting a quick glance at his lawyer; they hadn’t exactly discussed that part, but from her subtle shrug, it seemed like he was free to say as he liked. “We were.”

“Then how did you wind up here? _Why_ were you here at that hour, on Christmas Day?”

“We were on a road trip for the holidays,” John replied. It wasn’t exactly a lie.

Drosselmeyer frowned, and the pen between her two fingers flicked wildly back and forth. “In the middle of the night.”

“We were on a short time limit,” John said. Again, it wasn’t a lie. “Wanted to cross America before we had to get back to work on New Year’s, so there were a few nights we drove through to make up for lost time.”

She squinted, then leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. She was silent for a moment. Then she asked, “Why did you think I wouldn’t believe you?”

John furrowed his brow and tilted his head. “Sorry?”

“Yesterday. You _insisted_ that I wouldn’t believe the real story if you told it to me. Why would you say that? It sounds like a perfectly believable story to me—couple trying to drive somewhere through the night, one of them’s asleep, the other gets overtired and doesn’t see a little old lady crossing the road. Accidents due to exhaustion are common. What’s not to believe?”

They traded hard looks. Then John set his jaw and said, “And I was right. You still don’t believe me.”

“No, I don’t,” she snapped, setting her clipboard down with a hard slap. “Who voluntarily goes on a cross-country road trip in the middle of winter when the roads are shit? It’s all entirely too _convenient_ , and I’m not going to be taken on another run-around.”

“And **I** think you still don’t have any solid evidence to prove that my client was responsible in any way for Mrs. Bigerce’s injuries,” Tam butted in with a smile. “He’s not obligated to talk to you anymore at this point, so really, he’s being quite generous and cooperative with you.”

Drosselmeyer glared with venom at Tam; John could see her grinding her teeth. “Three more questions,” she spat, looking back at John. “Do you know where your boyfriend may have gone?”

John sighed and looked down briefly, then looked back up. “I can’t say for sure what’s happened to him; I haven’t been in contact since that night—he took my phone with him, and he’s not the type to answer a number he doesn’t recognise—he’s a bit paranoid like that. But I know we were heading south to Vegas, so it’s possible he kept on that way.”

“And the vehicle he was driving?”

“Same one I put in the theft report.”

“Appearance?”

John offered a few rough details of Sherlock’s own appearance, give or take a few quibbles (he subtracted a couple from his age and added some to his height).

“His phone number and permanent address?”

“That’s five questions,” he and Tam said at once.

Drosselmeyer sighed as though restraining the urge to slam a fist on the table. “Sorry. I’ve had a long day…or days. Could you please answer the questions?”

“Well, I doubt he’d answer if you called him, and I doubt he’d be at his address even if I gave it to you,” John said.

“Even so,” Drosselmeyer stated tiredly.

John remembered an address Sherlock used to have on Montague Street; it’d been up on his blog prior to moving into Baker Street, and for some reason he could still remember the number of the pink lady’s phone. But just as he was about to offer that information, a knock came at the interrogation room’s door. They all started and looked over in surprise as the door opened to reveal a mousey-looking secretary.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” she said in a hushed voice. “But you have a call, Becca.”

“It can _wait_ , Polly, put them on hold,” Drosselmeyer snapped. “I am busy here.”

Polly looked a bit pale. “It’s your sister,” she whispered. “And she said it was an emergency.”

Drosselmeyer didn’t even bother suppressing the growl of frustration as she pinched the bridge of her nose with her forefingers. She looked at her ballerina watch for a moment.

“Well, Watson, answer my last two questions and you can go,” she said. “And we’ll forget about you submitting a false police report.”

“Oh, right,” John said, then gave out the address and the number, which Drosselmeyer dutifully wrote down on her clipboard before standing up.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” she said stiffly, then marched out of the room.

“Sheesh, let’s get you out of here before she changes her mind,” Tam said as soon as the door closed.

“That seemed too easy,” John mumbled to himself, a bit unnerved.

“Hm? What do you mean?” Tam asked as she started to gather her things together.

“I’m not sure,” John replied, then shook his head. “But you’re right, let’s get out of here.”

***

“I guess we should set you up in a hotel or something until you can get a flight arranged,” Tam said as she fastened her seatbelt. “There’s no chance of you getting anything today, after all.”

John sighed as he fastened his own. “Yeah, I suppose even Mycroft can’t work that fast. Though I’d’ve thought, I dunno, he might’ve arranged for a charter or something.”

Tam drove them out of the car park. “He did for me. I suppose it couldn’t hurt to ask him.”

John looked at her, surprised. “You’re not from here?”

“Oh, no! I live in Florida. Flew out here this morning.”

“You…You came here that quickly? Jesus! I mean, I appreciate it, of course, but—”

“Think nothing of it! It’s back to work _anyway_ , so it’s not like I’m missing out,” Tam said, smiling. “Robert and I don’t have any kids yet, so it’s not like we’ve got anyone to watch all day. Besides, when you get a call from a cousin offering work and saying there’s an emergency, there’s no reason _not_ to go.”

“Ah, that’s right,” John murmured to himself. “Americans don’t get Boxing Day off.”

“Nope, they’re weird like that,” Tam agreed. “You want anything to eat? There’s a bunch of cowboy-looking places saying they’ve got bison. I’ve never had bison before. Oh, that’s a bit grim—why does that one have wings?” she suddenly asked, pointing at a sign where an illuminated bison with a halo and angel wings was declaring its restaurant had ‘HEAVENLY BISON BURGERS.’

John frowned at the angel-bison. “Could we make another stop first?”

“Sure. Where to?”

***

Dorothy Bigerce lay in the hospital bed with her head heavily bandaged and IVs hooked into her arm, the familiar smell of disinfectant in the air and the consistent drone of the heart monitor beeping. Her eyes were closed. John sighed.

Her husband sat next to her, square-jawed and solemn, with his hands folded together in his lap, sniffling from time to time.

John shook his head. “Poor woman,” he muttered, then turned to the husband. “What’s the word on her condition, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Bad concussion,” the man gruffed. “Hasn’t woken up yet. Heart’s acting funny, too. Trying to keep her stable.”

John nodded, briefly watching her chest rise and fall softly from her slow, yet steady, breathing. “It’s a miracle they got her stable at all,” he said.

“Probably got you to thank for that,” the man said with a small nod, then sniffled again.

John offered him half a smile and kept his hands tucked behind his back. He knew he shouldn’t stay too long—it wasn’t really his place to linger on this family’s situation, and Tam was waiting for him patiently in the lounge area—but he still felt guilty, and he couldn’t help feeling like there must be _something_ he was supposed to do…he just hadn’t put his finger on it yet. His eyes fell on a tree of get-well cards and bouquets at the bedside table, and he noted the crayon scrawl of children’s handwriting on most of them—the word “Coach” featured prominently.

Strange…especially to get so quick a response from kids that didn’t seem to be related to her, and the day after Christmas, at that, when every family was busy doing its own thing. Even the most prompt of mums would have to work some serious social-organising talent to get a whole team of children to make and send cards on the same day of the accident. It seemed impossible; did word spread that quickly around here?

“What does she coach?” John asked quietly, eyes fixed on the card tree. _‘Why is this important?’_ he couldn’t help pondering to himself, nonetheless somehow feeling that it _was_ important.

“Girls’ hockey,” the husband replied. “Little ‘uns—ages five to eight.”

“They must really love her,” John said.

“Seem to,” the man agreed, shifting slightly in his chair.

“Has she been coaching long?” John asked.

“Ten years.”

“She like it?” John tore his gaze from the cards and sent a smile to Mr. Bigerce.

The man’s thin mouth pressed into a frown, and he nodded in a subdued manner before rubbing at a reddened eye. John got a distinct feeling he was probably overstaying his welcome, intruding on this husband’s worry. He ought to leave.

But John hovered in place as though his feet had been cemented to the floor. His gaze fell back onto the cards, where he could see a grey-haired figure drawn in skates with smiling kids. Surely, a woman her age…coaching all those young kids with all that energy…surely, a woman her age would have to be wholly sound in mind and body to keep up with it all, on ice skates no less.

This couldn’t be a senile woman. And even a drunk person wouldn’t’ve wandered so _very_ far outside the city limits on their own for no reason.

“Can I get you anything?” John suddenly blurted, looking back to the husband. “Coffee?”

Mr. Bigerce squinted at him with watery eyes, and it made him look remarkably like Clint Eastwood. “…You don’t have to go to the trouble,” he replied.

“Oh, it’s no trouble! Least I can do, really. You must’ve had a long night. I’ll just pop out and be right back, you just sit tight!” John said in a rush, and he was out the door and marching down the hallway without even knowing where he was going, not even really seeing the path in front of him. His heart was racing. _Why was his heart racing?_ He had no idea how he found the break room, but find it he did, and he mechanically nabbed a fresh coffee from an unsuspecting nurse who snapped “Hey! You’re not supposed to be in—!” and stormed back out.

The hallway felt _brighter_ somehow, and John’s eyes were darting and catching on incongruous things—the brunette eyebrows of a nurse with blond hair, the slump of a man’s shoulders, a poinsettia broach—and it felt like there was a hive inside his head. His breathing had picked up speed as his legs carried him back to Dorothy Bigerce’s room. _Oh God, Sherlock, what are you doing?_ John thought in a panic just as he pushed open the door with a bright smile, coffee hot in his hand.

“There we are, sir,” John chirped, stepping briskly across the room and holding out the coffee to him.

Mr. Bigerce squinted at him, then sniffled and cautiously reached for the cup.

John’s eyes stopped and dragged on his wedding band, dull and smudged with grease marks. The man took a sip, his nose wrinkling in distaste.

“Don’t take sugar,” he croaked.

“When did you stop loving your wife, Mr. Bigerce?” John asked, gaze fixed on the man’s puffy, red eyes.

“What?” Mr. Bigerce barked, turning a confused glare on him. “What sort of question is—?”

“Your ring hasn’t been cared for. There’s a mountain of cards from her hockey team, flowers, even, but nothing labelled from you. Not that you’d _need_ to bring flowers, I suppose, but—”

“Just what are you—” the man said, voice lifting.

“Your clothes—” John said, eyes darting, catching worn patches at the jacket’s elbows, a loose top button in the shirt, frayed ends of a hand-knit scarf at least several years old, “—they’re old, not well cared for. If she still loved you, she wouldn’t’ve let that happen, she is—” John remembered the shining, dated earrings Dorothy had been wearing when they’d discovered her, the fancy shoes, the creases in her nice clothing indicating age in their wear but still well-tended, “—she keeps up appearances, even though your finances are slipping.”

“They’re just _clothes!_ ” the man snapped, slapping the coffee cup on the nightstand and rising to his feet. “I don’t know what—what _horseshit_ you’re tryin’ to pull—”

John’s head whirled as he took a step back from the furious man, and he suddenly felt a queasy, butterfly-feeling in his stomach. His eyes were drawn as if by a guiding hand to a vase of flowers resting on the windowsill beside him. Without even really thinking about it, he picked up the vase and shoved the flowers under Mr. Bigerce’s nose. He sneezed violently.

“Allergic rhinitis,” John said vaguely. “Smart of you…to take advantage of that…to help disguise your disappointment…”

_He probably takes an antihistamine for that,_ John realised, and it was like he’d triggered an instant rolodex in his brain that started blurring through entries of different prescriptions. He was dimly aware that Mr. Bigerce was raising his voice with some sort of abusive remarks directed at him, but he felt numb to it. _It doesn’t matter,_ John insisted, bringing the spinning rolodex in his mind to an abrupt stop.

“Did you…did you slip an antihistamine in her drink?” John croaked, because he was getting a _burning_ headache and he had to cover his eyes to recover himself for a moment. He took a steadying breath and opened them again, only to face the jackal eyes of a red-faced Mr. Bigerce. “ _Did you?_ ” John barked, instantly shifting into his command voice and stance.

Mr. Bigerce clenched his jaw. “This is ridiculous,” he husked, reaching for the call button and jabbing it. “I don’t have to be accused by some crackpot _bum_ —”

“I’m a doctor, a soldier, and a consulting detective for Scotland Yard, and your _wife_ didn’t just end up five hours’ walking distance outside the city on her own!” John snapped, delivering a knife-sharp glower. “She’s diabetic but obviously takes good care of herself if she can still coach kids’ hockey, and if you slipped something into her drink—you’re an older bloke, so you’re probably familiar with the first generation brands—it would take almost nothing to get her mixed up. Just drop her off somewhere well outside the city lights, let her wander off, and all you’d have to do is wait for the insurance money to roll in.”

Mr. Bigerce’s eyes flared dangerously, and John had the presence of mind to recall that he was in the American West and it was very, very possible that this man could have a concealed firearm on him. But he had no time to evaluate _that_ potential threat because suddenly a vision as clear as ice entered his mind’s eye: Mr. Bigerce in a kitchen unpocketing a prescription pill bottle and dropping a tablet into a mug of mulled wine, and the bottle’s lettering was so clear he could read it.

“You gave her Promethazine,” John growled, prepared to subdue this man at the first sign of a wrong move.

But at the name of the drug, Mr. Bigerce blanched, and his eyes widened. “How did you know that?!”

“You just told me,” John said, then turned his head sharply to the nurse and security guard gawking at them from the doorway. “Did you get all that?” he asked them.

The nurse made an astounding impression of a fish, and the guard blinked rapidly before stepping into the room.

“Best come with me, both of you,” the guard said, swinging back his shoulders.

“You can’t really _believe_ this—” Mr. Bigerce started, but the guard cut him short with, “I’m not taking my chances on what’s right, sir, now _both of you_ , come on.”

The guard gripped Mr. Bigerce by the elbow, and when he looked to John, John simply nodded and held up his hands briefly in surrender. The nurse stepped forward briskly to check on her patient, and John spared Dorothy Bigerce a last glance before following the guard out into the hallway, silently wishing her a speedy recovery.

***

“You really don’t know how to quit, do you?” Tam said as she walked with him out of the hospital.

“Not really, no,” John admitted, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his coat. “Thanks, by the way, for back there.”

“I’ll bill you for overtime,” she said lightly. With a click of a key fob button, her rental car beeped open. “But I’m just impressed you managed to catch the guy—has Sherlock been teaching you his method?”

“Um…sort of,” John replied, frowning to himself. He got in the car and fastened his seatbelt, his thoughts drifting back to the odd… _something_ that had happened in Dorothy’s room. Yes, he was familiar with trying to apply Sherlock’s method of deduction, but it had never been like there was something _inside_ him, nudging his eyes where to go or recalling information at so rapid a pace. Even remembering the incident made his forehead feel unusually warm, like the feeling he got at the first nip of alcohol in his system, inflaming him from the inside.

“Mrs. Winters—”

“Tam!” she chirped, turning them out of the hospital car park and onto the street. “I’m off the clock now, John.”

“Tam,” John corrected absently, before continuing, “Do you know—that is, you might know better than I do—but do you know if there’s anything in the Father Christmas thing that, um…is _contagious,_ somehow?”

“ _Contagious?_ ” Tam parroted, sounding just as confused as him. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure,” John murmured. “Just…it almost feels like Sherlock’s still here, somehow. But he isn’t. Or like something is following me, but, uh…in my head?”

Tam hummed pensively, and John turned to see that her brows were furrowed and her mouth turned down in thought; John could see a hint of the Holmeses in that frown.

“I haven’t heard of anything like that,” she said at last. “But The Obligation forked down into Sherlock and Mycroft’s line a few generations back from mine, so I’ve never really seen how it works first-hand.” She offered him a small smile. “Sorry.”

John sighed. “Thanks anyway.”

Tam perked up as she turned them into the lot of ‘HEAVENLY BISON BURGERS’ for a much-needed meal break. “Maybe you just need to think of it this way, John,” she said cheerily, “They say that the Christmas spirit lives in all of us, don’t they?”


	21. December 27

John was starting to feel rather disgusting in his clothes. He’d been wearing the same set since Christmas Eve, and though the long bath and shave at the hotel last night helped _immensely_ , he still felt uncomfortably grungy. It’d been one thing in the army, where he’d been working long, exhausting hours along with everyone else, so a bit of a stink was expected, but he was very aware of his pungency among civilians. So the first thing he did after breakfast at the hotel was beg Tam to drive him somewhere where he could buy a shirt, underwear, socks, deodorant, a toothbrush, and a small bag to carry it all.

“Can’t you get me anything sooner than that? You’re Mycroft bloody Holmes, for Christ’s sake,” John said into Tam’s mobile phone, which he was currently borrowing while shoving toiletries off the Wal-Mart shelves into his hand basket. Tam, meanwhile, had gone off to see if she could find a souvenir cowboy hat for her husband.

“John, believe it or not, I cannot use my position to solve every little problem that I am forced to deal with,” Mycroft retorted, sounding equally frustrated.

“Yes, you bloody well can! I’ve seen you do it! You do it _all the time,_ ” John argued, marching to the men’s clothing section. “You sent a helicopter to take me to _the Queen,_ for god’s sake, how is getting a charter flight any different?”

“Because there are _some things_ I’d like to keep from my employers, John, some things that you currently know about, and I do not want them starting to question why I’m suddenly spending so much money and resources getting a British citizen out of Wyoming when he had no cause to be there to begin with. If you think that British intelligence keeps a close eye on its citizens, Dr. Watson, it keeps a closer eye on its officials. We’re already suspect as it is with everything I’ve done thus far for you.” John heard him sigh heavily. “My position and the trust I’ve built over the years does afford me some leniency, of course; however…every detail gets recorded, John. Every one, regardless of its importance. I’d like to keep those details discreet where I can, especially in this matter.”

John sighed in turn. He supposed Mycroft had a point. He fingered through a stack of clearance holiday shirts, trying to find one that wasn’t too garish, then sighed again. “But it’s _Sherlock_. He needs me back there. And I have a feeling…I just have a feeling something’s not right; I need to be there with him.”

In the silence that ensued, John stared at a red, green, and blue tartan button-down long-sleeved shirt that didn’t look appalling and picked it off the rack.

At last, Mycroft said, “Is there something you are not telling me, John?” He’d said it with a fair amount of neutrality, even a hint of pleasantness, but John knew better than to take that at face value.

And somehow he knew he’d taken just a second too long to answer. He cringed.

“John.”

“No, nothing, really,” John tried, desperately hoping he wasn’t about to have _this_ conversation over the phone in the middle of a Wyoming Wal-Mart.

“John.”

John sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, not saying anything.

“…Well then,” Mycroft said evenly. “I suppose that does change a few things.” John heard the background noise of typing. “Ah, we’re in luck,” he said, accompanied by the sound of a triumphant _click_. “It appears that a flight has just opened for you. You’ll need to be at the local airport in an hour.”

John blinked and immediately checked his watch. “What did you do?”

“Nothing exceptional,” Mycroft replied. “Nothing I wouldn’t do for _family,_ ” he added, and the last word practically oozed through the phone.

John raised his eyes to the ceiling and mouthed a curse. “Thanks, Mycroft,” he said shortly.

“You are most welcome. John.” And with that, Mycroft disconnected the call.

John moved the phone away from his ear and groaned. Well…he supposed Mycroft would’ve worked it out sooner or later—not to mention, he seemed to approve, which was undoubtedly better than the alternative. It was something, anyway.

Tam, who’d been lingering nearby with a large, black cowboy hat in hand, came up to him. “What’s up?”

John handed back her phone. “Well, I have a plane to catch in an hour.”

She grinned, and John could’ve sworn that her smile actually _sparkled_. “That old fart gets softer every time I hear from him,” she said gleefully.

John snickered.

***

It was the smallest public airport he’d ever seen. It looked more like a visitor’s centre than an airport, but that meant he wouldn’t have to run through the terminal to make his flight, so for that he was grateful.

“Have a good flight!” Tam said, holding her hand out for him to shake, which he took warmly.

“Thanks. Sure you don’t want to check in with me?” he asked.

“And wait four hours before mine takes off?” she said, laughingly. “ _You’d_ only be here for like twenty minutes, tops! Nah, I’ll take some pictures around town and taunt Robert with them, maybe go see that Buffalo Bill museum. He’s a bit of a cowboy fan, so I have to see things for him.”

“All right, then,” John said with a smile, shouldering his small duffle as he opened the car door. “It was good meeting you, Tam.”

“Same to you! And John—” Suddenly, the returning smile she gave him was strangely subdued, at least by her standards. “—tell Sherlock I said hi. Mycroft, too. I haven’t really heard from them in years, but just let them know…you know, that I still think of them from time to time. Maybe you could bully them into a proper phone call sometimes.”

His smile fell a little. She had an expectant glimmer in her eyes and a light tilt to her mouth, but there was a hint of a furrow in her brow—John knew that expression. He’d seen Harry give it to him more than once: hope, but not that much, with heavy doubt cast over it like woollen cloth. John knew that Sherlock was pretty shit at keeping up with his family, considering how little he seemed to voluntarily interact with them, and Tam’s personality didn’t seem like it would mesh all that well with the Holmes brothers’, though she was perfectly nice enough and seemed to like them. He didn’t really want to get her hopes up, but he didn’t want to leave her on such a cold note either.

“No promises,” he said, “but I’ll try my best.”

Her smile brightened. “Have a Happy New Year, then!”

“You too,” he replied, then got out of the car, waving her off as she drove away.

Despite being such a small airport, it was decently busy enough inside, most of the other travellers appearing to be tourists and visiting family going home, with one or two people in military gear leaving on a tour of duty thrown in. Security was a breeze, considering how little he had with him, and he was contemplating buying a newspaper from the little shop for the first flight when he unexpectedly caught sight of Detective Drosselmeyer buying a bottle of water from a vending machine.

John started pretending he hadn’t seen her. It was none of her business now to know where he was going, and it was none of his to know what _she_ was doing here.

But Americans, especially _this_ American, apparently didn’t believe in politely ignoring things for the good of everyone, because as soon as she’d turned and spotted him, she started navigating towards him as sure as a vulture flies to roadkill. John inwardly groaned.

“Looks like you got off scot-free,” she said. She looked haggard, with deep circles under her eyes. The tight bun she’d kept her hair back in while on the job was a looser ponytail now, with a few corkscrew curls escaped and haphazardly framing her face. “Detective Stuart told me you caught the perp for us.”

“Yes,” John replied stiffly, looking back at the newspaper headline but not reading it. “You’re welcome for that.” When she didn’t reply but also didn’t move away, he added, “Bit surprised you weren’t there. I thought it was your case?”

“It was,” she said sourly, then sighed. “I was taken off it, though. Family emergency. Now I’m spending the rest of the year in Spokane. Chief’s orders.”

John looked away from the newspaper. She really _did_ look worn down—even her eyes were bloodshot. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said diplomatically.

“Yeah, well, at least my mother wasn’t in a hit-and-run, so it could be worse,” she snipped, then added, crossing her arms, “Though not by much.”

John sniffed, holding himself steady, though he could practically feel his blood pressure spiking. “Look,” he began, turning to face her fully and lowering his voice so as not to draw as much attention to themselves, “It’s pretty clear that you came over here to say something to me, so you may as well just spit it out. I’ve got a flight to catch, in case that wasn’t obvious.”

The force of her stare was daunting. “Yes, I’ve got something to say. Something to ask, actually.” Her head tilted slightly, mockingly. “Was justice done here? And don’t sell me that CIA, MI6, whatever-it-is-you’re-sleeping-with bullshit about it being ‘for the greater good,’ because I don’t believe in it. I haven’t believed in it for a long time. Was justice done for that poor woman? Look me in the eye and tell me if you think that everything that’s been done to her has been set right.”

Her eyes were a dark, greyish-brown, like a volcanic spill guzzling through trees and road signs in its path. John felt his anger deflate.

“You know, I’m not sure,” he admitted softly, eyes dropping briefly in reflection before looking back up. “Maybe not. …But I think we’re both trying to do the best we can to make things right. I can promise you that much.”

He waited as she considered his response, cocking his ear to listen to the terminal intercom announce that his plane to Denver was now boarding.

Her jaw set. Then, to his surprise, she spat out a “Fine” and held out her hand. Stunned, John took it—and she squeezed painfully tight, fixing him with an unforgiving glare. “But don’t come back to this town. Ever. Do I make myself clear?” John nodded rapidly, and she released him. “And tell that son of a bitch you’re protecting that he better not come back either, if he knows what’s good for him.”

As she turned and walked away, a strange intuition came over him—a feeling like déjà vu, but warped and distorted like an image seen through water; she had the gait of someone returning to the battlefield, with veteran composure and reluctance in equal measure. It hit him.

She hated him, and it was no wonder, really. He would’ve felt the same. It was unfair, as deeply unfair as any of the times he and Sherlock were forced to watch a murderer walk away unscathed.

It was easy to see now why Sherlock had so many enemies of his own, even in Scotland Yard, if all it took was someone thinking you could get away with anything—or if you were on the opposite side as them. John couldn’t help but wonder why he didn’t have more of them himself. Maybe he did, and he just hadn’t realised it.

He sighed and shook out the lingering pain in his hand, then stood in the queue for boarding.

Exhaustion crept up on him as he settled into his window seat. The small plane was crowded, every overhead luggage compartment stuffed to near-bursting like a nose in the throes of a rhinovirus infection. In spite of his exhaustion, an impatient agitation snuck into his chest. _Finally,_ he was leaving this city and the entire, convoluted mess behind him. No more little old ladies, no more lying and dodging past a detective whose aim was really too close for comfort, hopefully no more America for a while. Now all he had to do was sleep and change planes a couple of times, and he’d be back in London and using whatever plan Mycroft thought up to get back him to the North Pole.

Hopefully Sherlock was okay.

John leant his head awkwardly against the curved wall of the plane, tuning out the automated safety review the attendant was miming along to at the front of the cabin in favour of closing his eyes. As the plane jostled into reverse and trundled into place at the end of the runway, he opened his eyes again to look out the window for a last glance at Cody, Wyoming as they took off.

As the engines roared to life, John looked across the field of dead yellow grass and saw a snowy, skeletal figure in the distance, and as she turned to face him, she raised one bony arm and waved it slowly, back and forth, back and forth, over and over, and John could feel the engines vibrating and the plane charging down the asphalt but he couldn’t hear anything over the piercing ringing in his ears and the sound of his own breathing. As the plane left the ground, she vanished.

They soared into the air, and sound bubbled back to him in bits and pieces—first the rumble of engine power, then the shift of his neighbour next to him adjusting in her seat, then the wibbling of a young child somewhere who was uncertain about taking off. His heart was racing. He had to have imagined that—not enough sleep, too much stress, too much worry. There was no way Mrs. Holmes could’ve been here; she was at the North Pole with Sherlock.

And even if she could have been here, what would that have meant?

The city shrunk away as they gained elevation, the sun shining brightly over the mountain basin, and John slid the screen shut to avoid the blinding glare.

He was wide awake.

***

Nothing happened.

John was vigilant, listening to the snoring of the man behind him, staring at the blue speckled fabric of the chair in front of him, looking out the window at the wings, gulping down ice water, and waiting for something to happen. When the pilot announced that they were beginning their descent, he was annoyed. An hour and a half of _nothing_ , and he hadn’t even slept! It was like being back in the army all over again—except this time he only had his own overstressed brain to thank for that needless alert, not an actual legitimate threat lurking somewhere out there. Clearly, he needed more sleep than he thought.

In comparison to Yellowstone Regional, Denver International Airport was practically palatial, and it bustled and beeped and buzzed with people and machinery. A family of four with roller-bags almost ran him over as they sprinted past him. He used the loo. He stood in a sprawling queue for Caribou Coffee and picked up a sandwich for his next flight. He bought a newspaper and read it while waiting at his next gate. He accidentally made eye contact with an infant who burbled and squealed with laughter when he smiled at her, and briefly, he felt a familiar surge of glee before it fizzled back into the uncomfortable, edgy haze he’d been in since he’d left Cody. The thing about travel was that it seemed so _endless_ , and in any other circumstance, John might’ve welcomed it—the energy, the movement, the sense of progression, the unexpected blips that created stories you told when the journey was over—it was like bloodless war, like living with Sherlock.

If only it weren’t Sherlock he was so anxious to get back to, he might’ve even enjoyed the ridiculous detour in Wyoming. But as it was, the whole situation somehow felt as though he was being repeatedly pinched along his arms and the back of his neck by invisible fingers, irritation and exhaustion adding up for every little pinch. The last time he technically saw Sherlock was him flying off in the sleigh, but he was unable to forget the image of Sherlock breaking apart into snow—his shocked blue eyes clouding over white and shattering was so sharp in his mind that John still felt a pang in his chest just thinking about it. It had been a dream. But in a way, John felt like he hadn’t woken up at all.

Settling into his seat, again by the window, a static sensation like pins and needles flooded him, and he closed his eyes and breathed slowly, hoping it would pass. It took him a moment, but John suddenly realised what it reminded him of—the aftereffects of rapid gunfire, when his head would still buzz with energy and the echoing explosions of gunpowder rattled through his ears. The ping of the intercom startled him into opening his eyes, and the sensation muted—he could still sense it there, but at least it wasn’t overwhelming him now. They were apparently getting ready to take off. How long had he been out of it?

The engines rumbled, and John’s eyes were drawn to the window as if magnetised.

She was closer, just beyond the wing, waving, over and over, faster than before, and John felt an arctic chill numbing him from his eyeballs through the rest of his face. His breath condensed in front of him. The window clouded, but still her shadow waved beyond the tarmac like a wild kite escaped into the wind. They lifted off—she was gone.

John shuddered for breath, not even realising he’d been holding it, and he wiped a hand over his face to find it as frigid as it had seemed. It couldn’t be a hallucination anymore. Well, it _could_ , but with the way things had been going for him lately, he highly doubted that was the case. If his flatmate could be Father Christmas, then seeing his flatmate’s mother’s apparition where she should not be was not out of the realm of possibility at this point.

What did it mean that he was seeing her? He was already going home as fast as he could manage; if she was trying to tell him to hurry up, there was nothing he could do to make that happen. But he didn’t think that was the case here—from the frantic way she was waving, it was clear she was trying to get his attention, as if to warn him about something.

He’d seen her apparition before on the previous flight, but nothing had come of it. Would anything come from it now? How could he possibly know?

‘ _It always comes in threes,_ ’ she’d said in the dream. Had he missed something the first time she’d appeared? Did he have to see her a third time before something happened?

But she’d also said, ‘ _You’ll be too late,_ ’ and there’d been… A chill passed over him, and he shook his head and clenched his jaw. He couldn’t be too late already. Not while he was doing everything he could to be on time.

Resigning himself to not being able to sleep on this flight either, John folded open his newspaper and began to read. 

***

This time, something happened. It began to happen an hour into the flight, though almost everyone was none the wiser. There was a struggle, indecision, uncertainty, all in the primordial silence of an animal trying to come to terms with itself. Finally, a decision was made, and the susurrus of action taking place in a calm, collected manner.

The intercom announced: “Passengers, if I could have your attention, if there is a doctor on board, would you please hit your flight attendant call button?”

John lifted his eyes to the ceiling and sighed deeply. An intrigued and mildly concerned collective murmur reverberated throughout the cabin. _Of course,_ John thought to himself, _of course this would happen._ He reached up and pressed the button.

A flight attendant bustled over, and John could see the pinch in her professional smile. Before she could ask, he stated, “I’m a doctor with plenty of experience in emergency situations,” to which she replied with a relieved smile, “Yep, you’ll do. Come on up to the front, sir.”

Behind the curtain separating economy from business class, a woman in her fifties was noticeably sweating and shaking in her seat as another flight attendant knelt next to her, murmuring soothingly. John immediately knelt next to her as well. “Hello, I’m Dr. John Watson, and I’m here to help you. Can you tell me your name?” he asked, switching into his Doctor Voice effortlessly. The flight attendant beside him stood up but stayed nearby; the second one went to intercom the pilots that they’d found someone to help.

The woman turned to him, her expression tense. “Janice,” she whispered.

“Janice, are you experiencing any pain? Chest pain? Pain in your jaw?”

“No, no,” she said, closing her eyes. “No pain. I’m just…dizzy. Can’t catch my breath.”

John turned to the attendant. “Do you have a medical kit or something?”

“Yes, of course,” she said, holding it out to him. He practically tore it open and fished out a manual blood pressure cuff and a stethoscope.

“Janice, do you have asthma? Any chronic illness that’d give you trouble breathing?” She shook her head. He gently reached for her arm and asked if he could roll up her sleeve, to which she nodded. He looked to the attendant. “Is there a separate oxygen tank available? Or is there a way to get the overhead oxygen mask down?”

“Yes, I’ll go get it,” she replied, then went over to the galley to fetch it.

John attempted to take her blood pressure, but damn if it wasn’t a challenge to hear over the engines. Why couldn’t they have digital blood pressure cuffs on these things? When he _did_ manage to catch it, it was… _very_ low.

“Right,” he said, taking the stethoscope out of his ears and fishing for aspirin and an IV fluid bag and needle in the med kit. The flight attendant had returned with an oxygen tank and was hovering nearby. “Janice,” he said, checking her eyes for alertness, which she still appeared to have. “Your blood pressure is very low—I can’t know what that means without having a full set of equipment available, but to be on the safe side, you should take this aspirin—” He handed her the pill and instructed the attendant to bring water. “—and I’m going to have to administer fluids to you to keep your blood pressure stable. All right?”

She nodded and very carefully took the aspirin, sipping slowly at the water bottle the attendant had fetched, looking quietly frightened out of her mind. John reached for the oxygen tank the attendant held out to him, and he instructed Janice to hold it firmly over her mouth and breathe normally. Then he set about trying to find a vein in her arm—nurses were always better at finding veins, god knows Bill Murray could practically find one with his eyes closed—it took some time, and not an undue amount of patience, but he found it eventually and had the attendant hold the fluid bag up as he rechecked his patient’s blood pressure again. Unsurprisingly, it was still worryingly low, but holding steady now, at least.

The second flight attendant returned. He turned to her sharply. “Tell them we have to land as soon as possible, somewhere with decent emergency services waiting when we land.”

“They’re consulting with ground medical support right now,” she replied. “They’re waiting on your recommendation.”

“Oh, no,” Janice groaned, taking off her mask, “I can’t do that to—”

“No, keep that on,” John interrupted, putting the oxygen mask back to her mouth gently and looking her in the eye. “Your life is more important than anyone on this plane being _on time_ , you understand? I’m sure your family would rather have you safe than on time, too.”

He looked back at the attendant, who hadn’t moved. “Well? Get on with it,” he snapped, and she jumped back to the intercom to relay the order.

Internally, he sighed. He wasn’t going to be anyone’s favourite person on this flight, but it couldn’t be helped. Rechecking his patient’s blood pressure, he resigned himself to the fact that he was going to be set back…yet again. 

***

When they landed in Dayton, Ohio, he rattled off all the relevant information he had to the paramedics, assured Janice that she would be well taken care of and that her family would be informed about what’s going on, and then returned to his seat. The other passengers eyed him as he passed by; some were grumbling and clearly worried about making it to their destinations on time, but most were just on their phones or reading, patiently waiting. John just felt tired.

They waited.

And waited.

After an hour and a half, the pilot finally came on the intercom: “Good evening, folks, sorry for the delay. As you know, we had to make an unscheduled stop due to a medical emergency on board, which has been taken care of. Unfortunately, as we’ve been refuelling and doing our pre-flight inspection to make sure everything’s ship-shape, we found that there was something not quite right with one of our engines, so we had maintenance come look at it, and they found a crack in the fan hub, which needs to be replaced.”

The passengers groaned.

“The good thing is,” the pilot continued, “we managed to catch it before take-off, which would have been quite a problem otherwise if it had fractured in flight. But as you can probably guess, it’ll take some time to get the parts replaced, and they’re estimating it would take a minimum of five hours to find the parts and install them.”

The groan erupted into a universal, disjointed chorus of frustrated complaints, John included among them.

“So the airline’s trying to arrange for those of you who have connecting flights going out of JFK to transfer to another flight to get there—ask one of our representatives for more information on what’s happening with your flight arrangements. For the rest of you whose final destination is New York, well, you’ll be waiting with us here for a while. When I get any more updates, I’ll be sure to let you know the progress of repairs as soon as I get them,” the pilot concluded.

Well…it was better than _nothing_. John shuffled out of his seat with his small duffle and proceeded down the aisle with at least a third of the other passengers. But as he exited onto the terminal and queued at the gate’s desk, a thought struck him—is this what the apparition of Mrs. Holmes had tried to warn him about? Had she been warning him about the passenger on board or about the broken plane piece? But what about the first leg of his trip—what had he missed then? Or had he seen her twice for the two things she’d been warning about on this flight? Or were the appearances unrelated to this incident?

As he approached the desk and handed the representative his passport and boarding pass, she raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Oh, so you’re the doctor?” she said, to which he gave her a tired, half-hearted smile and a nod. “Well, that’s as good a reason to give someone an upgrade as any,” she stated, typing into her computer.

“Thanks,” he said mildly.

A moment later, she tapped a button on her computer decisively and stated, “Okay, so the next earliest flight we can get you on to JFK leaves in an hour, though I’m sorry to say you’ll probably still miss your flight to London by this point.”

John sighed. “All right.”

“It’s pretty tight since international flights at this time of year get booked up way in advance, so if you miss your flight, my best guess is that the next one we could _possibly_ get you on won’t be for another eight hours.”

John just nodded.

She handed him a piece of paper and smiled sympathetically. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” he murmured, taking the paper and walking out of the queue. He trailed down the corridor, hanging his head a little, and checked his watch, only to discover he still hadn’t changed it from London time. But by his watch, it was after midnight on the 28th of December. It couldn’t’ve possibly been only three days since he last saw Sherlock. He must’ve been in America for at least a week now.

He made it to his new gate. He used the loo. He bought another sandwich. He pondered if he was in Purgatory. He waited.

When he was finally loaded onto his new plane in blessed first class, time began to drag. The intercom sounded…fuzzy, and far away. Sighing deeply, he looked out his window. Nothing was there. His eyes drooped, closed, and didn’t open again for the rest of the flight. 

***

Despite having slept the entire way to New York, John wouldn’t describe his sleep as having been ‘restful.’ His dreams were jumbled—splattered with vivid but confusing shapes that were inexplicably intimidating—and he’d been filled with a sense of tumbling weightlessly through space before colliding with something enormous. On arriving, he discovered that his plane to London had departed forty-eight minutes ago. He dragged himself over to a representative and set his passport and boarding pass down.

It wouldn’t be eight more hours after all. It was twenty-three.


	22. December 29/30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **A/N** : Sorry for posting this one a day ahead of schedule, but I wanted to get it sorted so I can focus my attention on the many chores I have left to do before the holidays. ^^;; Next week's chapter (the last chapter for now!) will be on the regular Thursday.

The plane was packed, and the weather was frightful. There had already been a delay as they’d waited for the plane to arrive through the storms, and now that they were boarded, it seemed likely they’d have to wait again in a long line of other aircraft for take-off.

The airline had put him in another first class seat since apparently it was the only kind available, and unfortunately he had to pay a portion of the extra cost which he thought a bit unfair, but whatever—as long as he could actually get home _today_. As far as John was concerned, Mycroft could foot the bill since he’d been so _adamant_ about avoiding a charter flight, which would’ve spared them a number of delays by now. What day was it now? His watch said it was the 30th, though it was probably the 29th, but for all he knew it could very well still be the 28th. At this point he wouldn’t be surprised if time started going backwards just to spite him.

He checked his watch again as the safety spiel came on, and…the second hand _did_ , in fact, stop moving. Squinting, he tapped the glass face, glanced up at the safety video to see it still playing, then looked back to find the minute hand spinning backwards then forwards, and a sudden, feverish nausea overwhelmed him.

 _Oh no_ , he thought, closing his eyes, trying to keep his breathing steady as sweat started to bead along his brow. _Not now, **please**._

The sounds of the plane muted. Eyes shut tightly, he took a deep breath, then turned sharply to the window.

She was just outside the Plexiglas, staring in at him through cavernous hollows. The chill took him instantly, and he gasped as goosepimples bubbled up his arms and neck. “No,” he whispered, shaking his head minutely, shivering. She just stared back at him, the flakes in her eyes spinning ceaselessly.

 _What is it, for god’s sake?! What are you trying to tell me? Just tell me!_ he thought desperately, his nose and lips starting to go numb with cold.

She opened her jaw—wider, wider—then broke apart, flurries scattering. John blinked rapidly, then watched incredulously as one of the flakes filtered through the window. It twirled. Without warning, it landed with a snap on his nose, and John saw a bright flash of light and heard the roar of air and combustion. Sound bubbled. Warmth returned to his face.

The plane had taken off.

He spent several moments trying to discreetly catch his breath. Checking his watch once again, he discovered that thirty-four minutes had passed. Had he blacked out? Had anyone noticed? He glanced across the aisle and saw that a handsome blond man was giving him a concerned look. John attempted to give him a nonchalant smile. He prayed he hadn’t been saying anything out loud.

But what would happen now?

She’d been getting closer each time. Something was going to happen. They were hurtling through the sky at mindboggling speed, and something awful was going to happen. Could he stop it this time?[32]

According to the flightpath monitor on the back of the chair in front of him, they were beginning to fly over Rhode Island, with about six hours and fifteen minutes until they reached London. It felt like so _long_. How was he supposed to know when…whatever was going to happen? Did he seriously have to stay alert for all six hours? He was used to long, dull stretches of time in anticipation of a crisis, but that didn’t mean it didn’t drive him up the wall. He wanted to be up on his feet, pacing, doing _something_ , but the man across the aisle was still giving him leery glances, so he couldn’t. Should he even dare sleep or watch a movie?

In the end, there was nothing for it; he couldn’t plan anything, but then, he’d always thought better on his feet. Maybe he’d watch a movie after all…but keep the sound on low.

Forty minutes into _The Avengers_ , a flight attendant came by to take his drink order and he got a coffee. Looking outside the window, he half-expected to spot a gremlin setting fire to the engines. All was well. Their plane was ploughing through dark, heavy clouds, causing an occasional rumble of turbulence. Everyone in business class—minus an older gentleman sitting in front of him—was still awake, most with headphones plugged in and watching a film, though the bloke across from him was studiously reading a magazine.

After _The Avengers_ was over, the attendant came by again to take their dinner orders, and he picked some sort of pasta since it sounded the least terrible. As he chewed reheated noodles slathered in cheese sauce, nausea struck as remembered he was waiting for possible death. He forced the feeling down with a hard swallow and a gulp of water.

If only he had a countdown—not for the plane’s arrival in London, obviously, but for…whatever was going to happen. What if it happened right when he was using the loo?

John loaded up _Prometheus_ next…before coming to the quick realisation that this was definitely not a film he ought to be watching in his situation, so he switched over to _Snow White and the Huntsman_.

The passengers around him were starting to drop off one by one, reading lights clicking off, screens darkening. Snores and coughs broke through the overall quiet of the cabin; John, removing one of his earbuds, noted that there didn’t even seem to be a child stirring in economy—with a plane this size, he might’ve expected at least one kid complaining about sitting still for seven-ish hours.

He checked the window again, but all he could see was darkness and the blinking light off the wing.

It felt so calm.

Five hours remained.

After a while, it was just him and the blond guy still awake in business class, and apparently his aisle-mate was engrossed in Sudoku. John was barely paying attention to his movie. The flightpath monitor indicated that they were just leaving Canadian territory and moving swiftly over the Atlantic; they were fast approaching midnight by New York time.

The pilot had long since put the heat on in the cabin, and John’s feet were becoming uncomfortably warm near the vent; sweat slicked between his toes. Now would be a good time to get up and walk around, use the loo, maybe scope out what was happening in the economy section if he was allowed back there.

As he unbuckled his seatbelt and stood up, however, the flight deck’s door opened and a middle-aged pilot came out to use the toilet, with a flight attendant going in to replace his post. That gave John as good a reason as any to wander into economy; he could just say the toilet at the front was taken.

He pushed back the curtain and strode casually down the aisle, trying to observe as much as he could without looking suspicious. Most people were attempting to sleep, some with more luck than others. People stuck in middle seats were trying in vain to find a position that did not end up with them asleep on a stranger’s shoulder. Couples and families were snuggled up together. A few scattered teens and young adults were determinedly staying up, watching movies. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Arriving at the back of the plane, he slipped into a bathroom and relieved himself, silently praying for nothing to happen.

Nothing did.

He walked back to business class and dropped into his seat, looking out the window once again. Nothing but murky clouds and raindrops across the Plexiglas, with occasional flashes of lightning stirring below them. He glanced at his movie to discover he hadn’t even bothered pausing it when he got up, a fact which caused him zero disappointment. It looked like it might be almost over anyway.

As the credits started rolling, his eyes caught on the gentleman in front of him shuffling out of his seat and going over to the toilet. The gentleman paused, shook his head, and went back to his seat. John squinted at the door. Was the pilot still in there? He checked around business class, noting that everyone still appeared to be in their seats, and made eye contact with the bloke across from him. John gestured with his chin toward the toilet and raised an enquiring eyebrow. The guy just nodded subtly and shrugged. So he _was_ still in there. Hopefully he was all right.

Tension gathered in John’s shoulders, arms, and thighs. Checking again, the view outside was the same as ever—stormy, but not disastrous. First class was still. His watch said it was almost five in the morning, but that wasn’t right. He switched to the flightpath monitor screen to find that it was actually closer to one.

And they weren’t flying on the highlighted route anymore.

John inhaled sharply, eyes riveting to the flight deck door. It was possible they were just trying to avoid the storm. Possible…but he knew to trust a gut instinct when he had it.

Stiffly, he got out of his seat and marched to the toilet door, softly knocking on it. “Sir,” he said, keeping his voice level but loud enough to be heard. “I’m a doctor. Are you all right?” Getting no response, he started into the galley to find an attendant when he felt a heavy hand clap onto his shoulder.

“All right, buddy, where do you think you’re going?” It was blondie, grim-faced.

John shrugged off the hand and gave him a stern look. “Something’s wrong, I’m getting the attendant.”

“Oh no you’re not,” blondie replied, pushing past him. “You sit down, I can handle it.”

John strode after him. “Yeah, and what makes you so bloody qualified?”

“U.S. Air Marshal,” the man retorted.

 _Ah_ , John thought, a fizzy sensation rushing through his head as his eyes caught on the details—military haircut, good physical condition, right-handed, only child, dog lover, concealed firearm and baton, single. He shook his head slightly, and the sensation cleared.

The air marshal was gently nudging the shoulder of an attendant asleep in her chair. “Jenny, wake up.”

Her head lolled, unresponsive.

“Shit,” the air marshal hissed.

“I’m a doctor,” John said, starting forward.

“And you want me to just take your word for that?”

Oh for god’s sake, there wasn’t time for this. “Look, do you want help or not?” John snapped, then shouldered by him to crouch down in front of her, checking her breathing with the back of his hand. “Still breathing.” While he checked her pulse—still present, but slow—and lifted up her eyelids to discover she must be thoroughly drugged with something, the air marshal went back over to the toilet and knocked on the door, asking for Bob, then forcefully wrenched the door open. John caught sight of a bottle of water nearby that was spilled over and dripping onto the carpet—probably how she’d been drugged.

As he stood and turned, the air marshal came back, saying lowly, “The pilot’s the same as her.”

“And we’re flying off the route,” John whispered.

“Yeah, I saw,” the air marshal replied, “same time you did, I think. I need to guard the door—can you be discreet?”

“Yes. And I’ve combat experience, so—”

“Good. Okay, listen, go to the back and check the attendants there, tell them what’s going on if they’re okay, then bring one back here if you can. We’ll need two codes for the door.”

“Right,” said John, turning sharply.

“And try to act casual,” the air marshal added with a hiss. “We don’t know if there’s others in on this.”

“Yeah, I know,” John snapped, then stepped out into the seating area after sparing a quick check on the pilot and shutting the toilet door to a crack.

“What’s going on?” one of the passengers asked immediately. “Is the pilot okay?”

“Nothing to worry about, the pilot’s just not feeling well, so we’re alerting the rest of the flight crew—I’m a doctor, don’t worry,” John said in a well-practiced reassuring cadence as he passed into economy.

Most of the other passengers seemed ignorant that anything was happening—either sleeping through it or engrossed in entertainment devices—though a few more alert ones near the front were glancing his way warily. He strode to the back of the plane…only to find the other four attendants similarly incapacitated.

“Oh no,” he whispered, heartrate jumping. He started shaking them by their shoulders and flicking at their cheeks, desperately hoping one of them might be _just_ resistant enough to the drug to— _yes_ , at last, the third one stirred. “Wake up,” he hissed, squatting down in front of her and lightly tapping at her cheek. “It’s important, you have to tell me the codes.”

She blinked her eyes open and gazed at him uncomprehendingly, pupils blown. “What’s…happening?” she murmured.

“You’ve been drugged. I’m a doctor. The air marshal needs the codes to the flight deck. Tell me the codes.”

“What?” she repeated, dazed.

His jaw clenched. In a quiet hiss, he insisted, “The emergency codes! You have to tell me!”

“But you’re not…auth…”

“Yes I am,” he declared, thinking quickly. “…Bob said so.”

This sparked recognition in her eyes. “Bob said so?”

“Bob said so. What are they?” he urged.

“Umm…” she murmured, attempting to rub at her eye and half-missing. “Two…two? Um…mm…four? Nine…six…one.”

“Is that both the codes? Is it six numbers total?”

“Six…one.”

“That’ll have to work,” John muttered under his breath, quickly standing and striding back through the cabin, no longer caring if he was ‘acting casual’ or not.

The air marshal was by the toilet door, standing guard. “Well?” he whispered.

“Drugged,” John mouthed.

“ _Shit._ ”

“Managed to get one of them awake enough to tell me the codes, though, hopefully,” John muttered.

“Good—tell me,” he said, fishing the baton out of a pocket in his coat and moving to the keypad next to the flight deck door.

“It’s either two-four-nine-six-one or two-two-four-nine-six-one, she wasn’t clear; I don’t even know if that’s one set or two,” John said, coming over to cover the other side of the door, dearly wishing he had his gun with him. “Won’t they have an override in there?”

“Hey, what’re you doing?!” a first class passenger called up; John heard them getting up from their seat, and he immediately raised a silencing hand and sent them a pleading look.

The air marshal ignored the passenger entirely and replied, “Yes, but let’s hope they somehow don’t hear it.” He punched in the last number.

They waited—no response.

The air marshal spared him a glance, punched in three more numbers, then pushed his shoulder to the door.

Miraculously, it yielded, and the air marshal burst in.

There was just one person at the controls, the final flight attendant, whom the air marshal promptly thwacked over the head with the baton and shoved out of the captain’s chair. He went out like a light, thudding to the floor, and the air marshal took his place in the seat.

John spotted the co-pilot tucked to one side on the floor with a rolled-up blanket considerately placed under his head.

The air marshal reached into a pocket and pulled out a set of handcuffs, jangling them to get John’s attention from checking on the co-pilot. “Cuff this guy for me, would ya, doc?”

“Right, yeah,” John replied, coming over to cuff the flight attendant, then dragging him to the other side of the cockpit. A handful of passengers had rushed up to the door.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” one of them demanded.

John put up a hand to stop them from entering. “Everything’s under control now, please return to your seats.”

“But what’s going _on?_ ” a particularly irritable man insisted, looking about to enter the flight deck himself.

John side-stepped to block him. “The flight crew have taken ill, and we were going off course. The U.S. air marshal there has taken over,” he stated, then shifted into his command voice, “Return to your seat, or I’ll cuff you to it.”

The man deflated a little, though he still scowled down at John. “Well, it’s not like I was asking something _unreasonable_ , it’s only our damn flight. How was I supposed to know you’re not fucking terrorists or something?”

John raised an eyebrow. “We’re not, sir. Now you’d best return to your seats—all of you,” he said, glancing at the other lingering passengers, “unless you’re a doctor, in which case you could help me with the flight crew.”

The man glared at him, but turned away to return to his seat, still grumbling. John sighed.

He looked to the incapacitated flight attendant, brow furrowed. “Why would a flight attendant do this?” he asked aloud, before kneeling down to check the attendant’s pulse—still alive, pulse steady and strong. He hadn’t been drugged. “He must’ve drugged the others—put something in their water.”

“From the coordinates, looks like he was taking us to Iceland,” the air marshal added.

“ _Iceland?_ ” John repeated, casting an incredulous glance the air marshal’s way. “What on earth for?”

The air marshal shrugged. “Beats me. It’s not like he couldn’t’ve gotten a separate flight there on his own. Why would anyone want to risk their job and incarceration just to go to Iceland?”

John looked back at the unconscious flight attendant. He certainly didn’t _look_ Icelandic, from what John could tell—dark hair, rather dusky complexion; he also looked a bit on the older side, maybe mid-forties. John glanced again at the co-pilot, with his head gently cushioned.

“Perhaps he was being threatened?” John guessed. “Forced to go there, for some reason? If he’d meant any real harm, he would’ve poisoned the rest of the crew, not just knock them out.”

“Guess we’ll ask him when he wakes up,” the air marshal stated. “Thanks for the help, by the way. Kept a cool head back there.”

“Yeah, well, I guess you could say I’ve seen worse,” John replied, smiling lightly.

“You mentioned something about combat experience, didn’t you?”

“I served in Afghanistan for a time.”

“Huh. Small world,” the air marshal said, sounding amused.

John stood up again, brushing off his knees. “I’d better check on the flight crew again, maybe some of them are waking up. You can manage that on your own?” John asked.

“The auto-pilot’s doing most of the work,” the air marshal replied. “I’m just keeping an eye on it and sending off messages to air control. I’ll get on the PA and say something to the passengers, too, after I’ve let air control know.”

“Okay, I’ll be back later,” John said, exiting the cockpit and hunting down the first aid kit from the galley.

Fending off curious looks and questions from the other passengers, who had all by now begun suspecting something was off, he thoroughly checked to make sure the flight crew were at least stable even if they were unconscious. The one flight attendant who had managed to talk to him before was more awake when he next checked on her, though she still seemed slow in responding, so he gave her more details on what was happening.

“Paul?” she murmured. “No…I’ve known him for years. He wouldn’t do that.”

“He has,” John stated simply, taking her pulse. It was stronger than before. “Any idea why he might?”

She shook her head. He fished around the galley until he found the passengers’ supply of beverages, then picked out a can of apple juice and handed it to her. “When you’re feeling a bit better, sip on that some. If the others start waking up, holler for me, okay?”

She nodded and sipped at the apple juice. He headed back to the flight deck.

“How are we doing?” he asked the air marshal.

“Three hours to London,” he replied. “We’ll be getting ambulances and police when we arrive.”

“Good.”

Just then, the flight attendant stirred, groaning.

John turned sharply to him and knelt down. “Awake then, are you?”

The attendant blinked up at him, then closed his eyes, defeat deepening the lines around his mouth. “Oh no,” he moaned.

“Mmhm. Care to explain what this was all about, then? Iceland?” John asked. When the attendant just sighed, John added, “Come on, Paul. You’re already caught, and we’re on our way to London—and you owe your co-workers an explanation, I think.”

Paul sighed again, finally opening his eyes. “You have a family?”

“Not exactly,” John admitted.

“Then you don’t know,” Paul said dismissively, looking past him. “You wouldn’t know. You young men don’t understand these things.”

John, however, wasn’t taking that for an answer. “Enlighten me, then. One way or another, you’ll be telling someone why you’ve made this happen—may as well be me. You’ve got nothing left to lose.”

Paul’s face crinkled in misery, and he closed his eyes again, shaking his head. A moment later, he said, “You’re right. I’ve lost everything now.” Something in him seemed to wilt, and when he looked to John again, there was a mistiness in his eyes. “My oldest son has gotten in with bad people at home—very bad. I’ve tried all I can to bring him back to us, but he wants nothing to do with me; he’s too old now to listen to me. I have to protect the rest of my family. The States isn’t safe anymore— _your_ country isn’t safe anymore, either. I had to take us somewhere where none of this mess could find us, when I thought they might not be looking.”

John blinked. “Your family’s on board?”

“Yes—no, please! Don’t…Don’t bring them into this, they’ve got nothing to do with it,” Paul begged.

“It’s a bit late for that,” the air marshal spoke up from the captain’s chair.

“I’m afraid he’s right,” John said to the attendant, who looked on the verge of panic. “No, look, I promise they won’t be harmed, all right? They’ll be fine. But just…why Iceland? Why not, I dunno, Canada or something? Why hijack the plane at all?”

Paul’s sigh sounded like a moan. “These people have been watching the planes, they know about me now through my son—they’ve tried to recruit me. I refused, but they don’t take ‘no’ for an answer, you know? We wouldn’t be safe at home anymore. Canada wouldn’t be safe either. I don’t know much, but they hinted…they showed…that it’s everywhere, and anything big gets swallowed up in it; it’s like a sticky web, and the spiders are in every corner.”

John frowned. “Who is it? Al Qaeda?”

Paul shook his head. “They don’t…call themselves anything, that I know of. No one spoke the name.”

John’s mouth thinned. He didn’t exactly know _that many_ terror organisations, even though he ran in Sherlock’s circle…except the one that he personally knew a bit too well, and _that_ bastard was the slipperiest one—and the most dangerous. It could very well be him. John wouldn’t be surprised if it were.

Paul sighed. “I thought…in Iceland there’d be nothing big enough to find us, so no one would think to look there. And it wasn’t—this wasn’t supposed to be anything so terrible, I was just going to call in an emergency landing, say the crew had taken sick, and we’d disappear from there. That’s all. Please, you have to believe me. I never meant anything terrible.” His eyes were wide with desperation.

John nodded. “I believe you.”

As Paul sagged a little in relief, the air marshal said, “As it turns out, it’s a good thing you didn’t get us to Iceland. I’m getting reports there’s been an eruption over there.”

“What?” John and Paul said simultaneously.

“Yup. We would’ve been on course straight for an ash cloud,” the air marshal confirmed.

“Will it get to London before us?” John asked.

“Hard to tell for sure, depends on how strong the air currents are today. We might be able to squeeze by, I think,” the air marshal stated.

“Oh god,” Paul whispered, turning wan. “I could’ve killed us.”

John gulped, remembering the vision of bright light and heat that Mummy’s apparition had shown him. That must’ve been it—what she’d been warning him about. He shivered, then inhaled and exhaled slowly. He looked back at the stricken flight attendant.

“Well, thankfully, it didn’t come to that,” he said gently. “Can you tell me where your family is seated? I think I ought to bring them up to first class so we can keep an eye on them.”

Paul just closed his eyes and muttered their seating assignments.

When John went to fetch them, he found a pretty dark-skinned woman holding a male toddler to her and a teenage daughter with eyes the colour of teak. “Excuse me, ladies, could you come up to the front, please?” he asked as gently as he could.

“What has happened?” the woman whispered, eyes wide with alarm as she held the toddler closer to her with one arm and grabbed her daughter’s arm with the other. “Why do we have to move?”

“It’ll be all right, ma’am,” John murmured, “and…I think it would be better for me to explain up at the front.”

As she and her daughter reluctantly started moving out of their seats, John tried to offer to help carry something, but she ignored him, passing the toddler into her daughter’s arms and taking their luggage herself. John awkwardly trailed behind them.

When they were settled into his and the air marshal’s empty seats, a look of grim resignation passed over the woman’s face as she took the sleeping toddler from her daughter. However, the daughter turned to John and said softly, “Dad’s in trouble, isn’t he?”

Her mother hissed and said, “Hush, Leila. Do not talk to him.”

John sighed, looking briefly to the mother, then back at the daughter. She seemed about twelve or thirteen. He was suddenly reminded of the Dutch girl from St. Nicholas Day—they were different ages, different people, but still…having to tell a kid why you’re taking away their parent isn’t easy. Christ, no wonder Sherlock hated The Obligation, if he had to say ‘no’ to so many of them—to their faces, even. He took a deep breath and thought a moment over his words. “Yes he is,” he said, glancing at the mother as he did so, who was watching him with a desperate mixture of emotion. “Your dad made a mistake, and he has to face the consequences of that.”

“He wasn’t hurting anybody, though,” she protested, getting angry. “He was taking us to Iceland to protect us!”

“I know,” John replied gently, “but the plane wasn’t supposed to go to Iceland. He took it from the pilots, and that’s still illegal; he could’ve endangered everybody on the plane. He has to own up to that responsibility.”

“What happens to us, then?” the mother said bitterly, nervously readjusting the toddler in her arms. “Paul in jail—and what about me, hey? I have these two to look after, will I go to jail too? Or be left to fend for them myself?” From her tone, it seemed like an argument she’d often repeated before with someone who was currently handcuffed in the cockpit.

John held her gaze and lowered his voice. “Listen…I can’t guarantee a lot, but I do know someone in London who will be able to pull some strings, and it sounds like you might know something he’d be interested in knowing. If you and your husband cooperate with him, he’ll be able to help you. I don’t know what he’ll do, but I can promise that you and your family will be safe, okay? Completely safe.”

She looked at him as if he’d just given her the only thing she’d wanted in several months. Then she nodded, shaking with relief, and he handed her a serviette.

***

As promised, a fleet of police and paramedics were there to greet them when the plane landed, and as the flight crew and Paul and his family were taken away, John found himself bombarded by law enforcement who were very much interested in hearing about what had happened on the plane—to which he temporarily evaded by begging off to use the loo. He badly needed a breather; he’d been tense since before this flight had begun, and now at last he was on London soil. There was just one step left in the plan before he was back with Sherlock, before he finally got to see if Sherlock was okay. It’d been six days, but he felt like he’d aged three years.

While he was scrubbing his hands and splashing water on his face, a stall opened behind him. It was the air marshal. Their eyes snagged on each other through their reflections in the mirror.

“Well, that was probably the most exciting time I’ve had on the job in a while,” the air marshal remarked as he went to the sinks to wash his hands.

“Don’t stop a hijacking every day, then?” John replied, snatching some paper towels and drying off his face and hands.

“Nope. That was my first,” he said, grinning. “Usually it’s just catching people smoking in the bathrooms.”

“Must get pretty dull,” John said. He didn’t think he’d be able to stand such monotony—sitting on a plane for hours on end, just watching people and the cockpit door, as a _job_?

“I can’t complain.” The air marshal shrugged, drying off his hands. “Get to see new places, new people. Like being back in the Corps again, but with less people shooting at me. Say, I didn’t catch your name before,” he added, turning to face him.

“You didn’t ask. It’s John—John Watson.”

“Thanks for all the help, John,” he said, coming forward to shake his hand. “Can’t exactly tell you mine—undercover and all that—but I go by Felix.”

John shook his hand. “Sure, I mean, of course, I’m happy to help.”

Felix put one hand on his hip and gestured to the bathroom door with a thumb. “Now comes the boring part, eh? Statements and reports and questions. Loads of fun.” He sighed, then quirked a smile. “If you’ve a mind to it, wanna get a drink afterwards? Show me around London?”

John jolted with surprise and blinked. “Oh, uh, sorry, um,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. He smiled a little. “I’ve kind of got someone waiting for me.”

Felix chuckled. “Ah, lucky them. I won’t hold you up, then,” he said, turning to exit the bathroom, then throwing back a wink. “Give ‘em a kiss from me, would ya?” he added, then left.

John exhaled slowly. Okay. He hadn’t been expecting _that_ , but okay. Certainly not the strangest thing to happen to him in twenty-four hours, let alone…well, anything that had happened since he’d met Sherlock. Sherlock definitely topped the Strangest Things list, not that John was complaining.

But as he finally exited the loos to face the barrage of questioning from the police, he couldn’t find a single officer in sight. Instead, there was Mycroft Holmes.

“You certainly have been keeping busy, John,” Mycroft said. “Quite the busy little bee.”

John sighed, almost too exhausted to be annoyed. Almost. “You know, I could’ve been back here a _lot_ sooner if you’d just arranged for a bloody charter like I’d asked.”

“And prevent you from stopping an attempted hijacking, saving someone’s life, and solving an attempted homicide? Now why should I do that?” Mycroft said with a thin smile.

John felt himself go cold. “You—you _knew_ that would happen?”

Mycroft furrowed his brow. “No, of course not. Despite what you may think, John, there _are_ places where my observation can’t stretch. Even Sherlock Holmes knows that.”

“Then why the hell couldn’t you get me a charter?!” John spat.

Mycroft raised a finger and cast his eyes briefly to a security camera, which had been turned away from them but was possibly still recording sound. “Not here. Come along, I’ve already cleared you through customs and immigration.” Without another word, he turned and began walking away, clearly expecting John to follow.

John just sighed, adjusted his rucksack, and did so.

Once they were in one of Mycroft’s nondescript black cars, John crossed his arms and waited for an explanation.

“I ask that you keep this information within strictest confidentiality,” Mycroft began, waiting for John’s understanding, which he gave with a small nod. “There is an airborne terror attack scheduled for New Year’s Eve, which I assure you is being well prevented, but I’m afraid it’s tied up all of our private airline transportation in the time being for various dignitaries, which we’ve assigned as an extra precaution. As you might understand, this time of the season tends to be quite busy for travel, VIPs included. There were simply no planes I could send you that were available.”

John snorted. “Not even any private companies in America?”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow. “I do not trust anything without a prior investigation of it. I had no time to research the companies near you on top of everything else I’ve been doing. Furthermore, as I explained to you in our previous conversation, hiring a foreign, private charter flight for a non-familial and nondescript citizen to enter British territory would look exceedingly suspicious on my part if I had done so. I’d rather not have my superiors thinking that I am the mole in our organisation.”

John frowned. “You have a mole in MI6?”

“Oh yes,” Mycroft replied, sounding unbothered by it. “I know who she is, in fact. It’s just a matter of gaining enough information out of her about the opposition before she loses her usefulness, after which I’ll expose her. But you know, office rivalries…” He grimaced, as though he’d tasted sour milk. “…they can be a nuisance if someone decides to present their evidence in such a way so as to incriminate you. I’d rather avoid the unnecessary drama altogether.”

“Wait, you just told me there’s going to be a _terror attack_ on New Year’s?” John spluttered. “What if my flight had been delayed another day? Where’s it coming from—would I have been on it?”

“Well, as you so adequately demonstrated tonight, John, I would not have been worried if you were,” Mycroft said. “And I don’t see any reason to tell you further details on it; I assure you, it’s being handled, though it seems a certain volcano may have unexpectedly interfered with the scheduling at present…” An annoyed frown crossed his mouth. “But it has occupied a considerable amount of my time and attention, which is why I asked Sherlock to take over The Obligation this year—how has he been handling that, by the way?” he asked, giving John a look as sharp and glinting as the point of a scalpel under an operating light. “I assume you’ve been helping him a great deal.”

John squinted at him, reluctant to answer the real, unasked question being addressed. “Hang on,” he said, thinking a moment, “that’s not what you told Sherlock at the beginning. You said it was…elections, or something, not a terror attack.”

“A necessary white lie,” Mycroft answered dismissively, still fixing him with a studying eye, “I’m not allowed to inform Sherlock of counter-terrorism campaigns unless I am involving him directly; he likely deduced the real cause regardless, but regulations must be followed.” He gave John a condescending look. “You really don’t think a task as jejune as monitoring elections would be _that_ demanding of my intellect, do you?”

“No, but I know you’d be lazy enough to try to pass The Obligation off on Sherlock even if that _had_ been the reason,” John retorted. “All that legwork and _caring_ —you must hate it even more than he does.”

Mycroft positively curdled. “There’s no need to be so aggressive, considering I got you out of whatever mess you and Sherlock made in America—which I am still interested in knowing the circumstances behind, need I remind you.”

John sighed and bit his lip, cooling his temper as he brought his hands together and gazed at a point just above the floor, contemplating the nagging feeling he’d had for days on end. “There was something odd about that,” he said at last, brow furrowing. “There’s been something strange about everything since we landed in Wyoming.” He looked back at Mycroft, who was watching him carefully. “Almost as if things had been… _planted,_ somehow. How did we manage to hit that woman in the middle of _nowhere_? She was five hours’ walking distance from anything, no cars in sight, and we still somehow hit her. And there’s just been times where it felt like things happened too easily—like they were just…too convenient. And I was seeing your mother nearly every time my plane was about to take off—”

“My mother?” Mycroft interrupted, looking _very_ surprised. “But that’s impossible.”

“Is it?” John asked, who’d suspected it was, but was never quite certain.

“Yes, of course,” was the simple answer.

After waiting for more of an explanation but not receiving one, John continued, “And I guess—um, well, I asked your cousin, and she didn’t know, but…is The Obligation contagious, in any way?” He winced, realising that he probably sounded like a nutter to anyone else. “Because at one point it felt like Sherlock was actually _in my head,_ and…” he trailed off, deciding against proving his own insanity further.

Mycroft stared at him for a long moment. “Do me a favour, John,” he said at last, reaching into an inner pocket of his coat and pulling out a lighter. He clicked the flame into being. “Stare at the fire, and do not blink until I tell you.”

“Why?”

“Please, just do so,” Mycroft instructed.

John stared into the fire, and an odd sensation swarmed over him—as though a thousand fingertips were dappling over his face and neck, almost as if he were…crackling.

“Remember, do not blink,” Mycroft reminded him, and snapped the lighter closed.

John stared at him, yet it was almost like he was seeing someone younger: there was a softer contour to Mycroft’s face that John couldn’t remember ever seeing; his hair looked a lighter shade; and he could swear there were ghostly outlines of glasses perched on his nose.

“I didn’t know that was possible,” Mycroft whispered.

“Can I blink yet?” John asked, eyes beginning to water.

“Yes,” Mycroft replied, hushed.

John blinked and rubbed hard at his eyes with the heels of his palms. “What isn’t possible? What is it?”

“John, did Sherlock do anything…unusual, before you two separated? Anything that might have seemed out of character for him?” Mycroft asked gravely.

“Um…” John carefully replayed the moments before Sherlock had flown off again in the sleigh. He’d given John his scarf, but that wasn’t glaringly strange; it’d been cold, and Sherlock had obviously reasoned that John would need it more than he did. He’d been a bit in shock after hitting Dorothy, which was understandable, and he’d also been prompt about assisting John during the immediate aftermath. But then, the moment before, as they’d been flying… John gulped, holding back a shiver: it was the striking image of Sherlock just after he’d suddenly sprung that intense kiss on him—when he’d been outlined by the moon, and there was a haunting… _otherness_ in his eyes that had momentarily struck John with alarm, and there had been that commandment that had seemed to boom from the heavens, ‘ _ **I need you**_.’

“…Now that you mention it,” John murmured weakly. “There was…there was something, yeah. Something that didn’t seem like him, when we…er.” He flushed and refused to look Mycroft in the eye. “…When we were with each other.”

“Well, it would seem that, from my understanding,” Mycroft began slowly, as if still trying to fathom the idea himself, “Sherlock has somehow managed to impart on you the Spirit of Old Yule.”

John turned his head slowly to face him again. “What?”

“Or if you prefer, the Ghost of Christmas Past,” Mycroft revised.

John closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “I’m sorry, are you telling me I’m _possessed_?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

Opening his eyes again, John gave Mycroft an incredulous look. “No, I’m sorry, but— _ghosts_? You’re trying to tell me there are _ghosts_ involved in this?!”

“They’re not actually ghosts,” Mycroft said vaguely, looking a bit constipated.

John buried his face in his hands. “Oh, great. Great. Just what we needed. Ghosts. What bloody next, the _Necronomicon_? Do I need an exorcism? Wait—” He shot Mycroft an alarmed glance. “—does this mean _Sherlock’s_ possessed by ghosts, too? Is this what you meant when you told him he’d be visited by three people if he didn’t do the Father Christmas thing—is this really _A_ fucking _Christmas Carol_?!”

“Ah, them…no, I was referring to three other…personifications, at that time. The time spirits are meant to be helpers; the other three…do not share that same function,” Mycroft said, grimacing. “Though I wonder if he might be seeing those ones now, considering the circumstances…” he murmured.

“THERE’S THREE _MORE_ GHOSTS?” John bellowed. “There’s _SIX_ fucking ghosts?!”

“Never mind the others for now, you have enough to comprehend as it is,” Mycroft said with a sigh, sounding exhausted. “And they’re not ghosts. It’s…complicated to explain. You are aware that Sherlock’s appearance can change while he’s under The Obligation, yes?”

“…Yes,” John agreed cautiously, remembering Sherlock’s vivid demonic guise.

Mycroft took a deep breath and let it out. “It’s related to what causes that. Essentially, Sherlock is the current embodiment of every winter Gift-Giver that people have thought up over hundreds of years—when people envision something frequently and earnestly enough, given time, it takes on a life of its own, in a sense. At the moment, he is attuned to every mind on Earth, and all those collective thoughts will merge into different entities of thought, perhaps even different personalities; it’s a system of organisation, after a fashion.”

Mycroft checked to see if John was following; John just blinked at him. Apparently deciding that was enough of a go-ahead, he continued, “And since there is a discrepancy between how we as humans experience time—in the linear fashion—versus how time actually functions, which is that it is happening all at once, concepts of the past, present, and future fashion themselves in Sherlock’s mind as separate entities so that he can perform the duties required of him easier, and so—” He gestured vaguely. “—we have the ‘spirits,’ a term which I assure you is closer to a romanticised shorthand than to reality.”

At John’s blank, thousand-yard stare, Mycroft sighed and said, “My mother explains it better than I do. It’s far more her area than mine.”

“…Sorry, it’s just…you are dropping ghosts and metaphysics on me after an eight hour flight,” John said tiredly, rubbing at his eyes again. “Can you just tell me if I am possessed or not?”

“The short answer is that I believe you are,” Mycroft replied. John groaned, causing Mycroft to unhelpfully add, “If it helps, I don’t believe there’s anything to worry about.”

John just began giggling. This night had been far, far too long.

“John? Deep breaths, John.”

John laughed harder. “This is fucking…This is fucking ridiculous. This is fucking ridiculous. What the _hell_ is even happening anymore, Mycroft?”

“ _Get a hold of yourself, John,_ ” Mycroft snapped, which succeeded in getting John to start settling down. “I understand it is a lot to take in, but really, I would have thought living with my brother for two years would have helped you build up an immunity by now.”

“Seeing as I’m apparently _possessed_ by one of your brother’s half a dozen ghosts or something, I don’t think immunity applies here,” John replied, hiccupping one last giggle before taking another deep breath that finally grounded him.

Mycroft sighed. “What you have is his ability to receive and process the past—or a part of it, at least—which tends to resemble a multiformed being, or sometimes it looks akin to a candle; I recognised it by the way the flame stayed in your eyes.”[33]

“But _why_ do I have that?” John asked. “Why would Sherlock give me that?”

“He might not have been aware he was doing it,” Mycroft answered, brow furrowing. “Even I found the process difficult to comprehend at first when I was forced to take up the mantle, and _that_ spirit can be…unbalanced, at times, even overwhelming if you are not familiar with it; it is the echoing thoughts and memories of thousands of people from several centuries, so cohesion and rationality are not its strengths—rather, it is chaos. Though why it would feel the need to transfer to you is baffling; I wasn’t aware it could even do that.”

“It said that it…‘needed’ me,” John said pensively, drumming his fingers on his knee. “What would it need me for, though? Sherlock would be the one using it, what with the List-checking.”

Mycroft quirked his head to the side and hummed thoughtfully. “Considering tonight’s events, which could have ended in disaster, perhaps it needed you in place to fulfil the outcome we currently have—from the spirit’s perspective, the event had already been written into history once the miracle had been chosen, so it was just putting you in the proper place to satisfy what it saw as reality. You’ll have to ask Sherlock what miracles he chose to bestow when you return; that seems the most likely cause to me.”

John started. “The mir—oh god, _the miracles_ ,” he whispered, putting a hand over his mouth.

“You know about that task, of course,” Mycroft said.

After a moment, John admitted, “Yes, I—I picked them out.”

“Did you?” Mycroft enquired, sounding amused. “Then you should know whether that is the cause.”

John groaned. “I didn’t look at all of them. None of the ones I remember were this—or, or anything that came before this.”

Mycroft smiled, and it was highly reminiscent of his mother. “Then perhaps we’ll never know.”

But John knew—he knew with the same certainty that he’d known his life would never be the same after he’d been shot. He knew that somewhere on his journey back to Sherlock, he must’ve fulfilled one of the miracles he’d chosen out of the mountain of paper; the nudging, guiding, _fateful_ presence he felt inside of him was too strong to ignore. He didn’t think he could pinpoint the exact instance: he had strong suspicions of the hijacking, of course, but at least half of the work in that had been Felix, not him; it might’ve been helping the woman on his second flight, causing the broken plane part to be identified; it might’ve even been preventing and solving Dorothy’s attempted murder. He didn’t know, and it felt like it didn’t matter—regardless how he spun it, John had unknowingly written himself into a plot of his own choosing.

Suddenly, the world felt very, very small, as insignificant as a pocket watch being wound into place.

“Are we almost home?” John asked quietly, sighing.

“We’ll be arriving at Baker Street in five minutes,” Mycroft replied, his expression cold and impassive, yet his reflection in the car window bore a shine of understanding in his eyes.

They rode on in silence.

On arriving, John sensed an unusual stillness about the flat, and when Mycroft let them in, John instinctively called for Mrs. Hudson.

“She is staying with her sister until after New Year’s,” Mycroft said, taking measured steps up the stairs.

“Oh,” said John, disappointment clunking in his chest. He’d been looking forward to seeing his landlady’s welcoming face more than he’d expected.

Even their living room felt unsettling, as thankful as he was to see it again: he and Sherlock hadn’t been in it for weeks, and though it was clear Mrs. Hudson had tidied up for them after they’d gone, a few scattered items made it seem as though they’d only just stepped out for a case—a book still open, a laptop still plugged in, and he’d bet the sherry he’d bought was still in the fridge, too. But dust filtered in the air, and there was a stale, musty smell that shouldn’t be present, and the room felt cold; it was like a specimen sealed under glass, not a home. It reminded him so strongly of that empty version of Baker Street he’d envisioned under hypnosis that he nearly backed out of the doorway.

“Have you been in contact with them at all?” Mycroft enquired from the window, where he was looking down to the street below.

“Contact?” John parroted, finally stepping into the room and setting his rucksack on the table. “How could I? Not like they’ve a phone up there.”

Mycroft turned to him, frowning. “You haven’t written?”

“Written?”

Mycroft looked at him like he was the world’s dumbest animal. “John, how do you suppose children have been sending in their requests for the past century?”

John blinked. “Are you telling me you _actually_ get the post up there?”

Mycroft sighed. “I suppose that answers the question,” he said, pulling a notepad and a pen out of his coat as he sat in one of the wooden chairs. “I’ll write to tell them you’re coming, shall I?”

John let out a sigh that was halfway a growl, then collapsed in his chair by the fireplace. “Why does nobody _tell me_ what does and does not work in this?” He rubbed a hand over his face; he desperately wanted a shower and sleep. “So, what now? You sending me through the fireplace again?”

“No. We do not just keep piles of ashes around that any person could find and use, John; the safest lock has only one key, and I am not currently in possession of it,” Mycroft replied, folding the paper in half and writing the address on the blank side.

“Then, what? Helicopter?”

“Are you not aware of what ‘secrecy’ entails, John? Of course you’re not getting a helicopter,” he answered dismissively.

“Says the man who sent a helicopter to take me to Buckingham Palace,” John shot back.

Mycroft smiled in an unfriendly way. “Buckingham Palace is not a secret.” He checked the pocket watch pinned to his waistcoat. “ _Your_ transport should be arriving within two hours, so I suggest you prepare for that. Dress warmly—very warmly.”

John tilted his head back to the ceiling. “Christ, already? I’m exhausted, Mycroft. I haven’t slept properly in _days_.”

Mycroft gave him a commiserative look. “I am not unsympathetic, John; however, if you are to have a chance at outpacing the volcanic cloud that will be drifting our way _and_ you plan to make it back to the North Pole before New Year’s, you will have to leave as soon as possible, which is in fact today. The cloud will be upon us by tomorrow.”

John rubbed his eyes. “Right. Right, you’re right. Okay. Guess I’ll have a shower in the meanwhile. Wait—what is it I’m going in again?”

“It’ll be easier to explain when I show you.” Mycroft made a shooing motion at him. “Get ready; I’ll post this along.”

John pulled himself out of his chair and down to the bathroom, where he spent perhaps a longer than necessary time washing off the stress-sweat of his travels, then pulled on his bathrobe and dragged himself up to his room to change clothes. Mycroft had been absent from the living room when John had passed by, which John had chalked up to him doing Important Mycroft Things downstairs. But as he sat on his bed and pulled on his warmest pair of socks, John gazed yearningly at his pillow. Mycroft had said his transportation wouldn’t be for two hours—though probably it’d be one and a half hours now. Maybe he could take a short kip until then…God knew he’d earned one by now. Before his head had even hit the pillow, he was asleep.

In what seemed like no time at all, his shoulder was being gently shaken. John refused to open his eyes, grumbling.

“I let you rest an extra hour; John, you have to get up now,” Mycroft declared. “We’re cutting it close as it is.”

John opened his eyes to a dim room; his lamp had been turned on, the curtains had been left open, and the sky was dark. He checked his bedside clock and found it to be early evening. Mycroft was standing by his bed with John’s borrowed blue coat and one of Sherlock’s coats draped over his arm. At last, John sat up, rubbing his eyes.

“Right, okay,” he murmured. When Mycroft held out the coats to him, he took them with some confusion. “Why’re you giving me these?”

“You’ll need them,” Mycroft replied. “I did tell you to dress warm—you’ll need gloves, by the way,” he added, pulling out John’s heaviest gloves from the pocket of Sherlock’s coat. “And I’d advise wearing that scarf Sherlock has loaned you. My mother’s hat would not go remiss either.” He produced them from the other pocket of the coat; clearly, he must’ve snooped through John’s rucksack before coming up.

John just put them on without comment. Mycroft went to the window and opened it as far up as it would go, and a blast of frigid air swept into the room. John raised an eyebrow. Mycroft turned to face him and said, “Come up to the roof.” Then, with as much dignity as any man could muster in the situation, he went through the window and started up the fire escape. John just shook his head, sighed, and followed.

On the roof, there was a canoe.

John stared at him for a solid thirty seconds. Finally, he said, “Since when do you have a sense of humour, Mycroft?”

“This is perfectly serious, John,” Mycroft replied, gesturing with one hand towards the canoe, which looked like it had seen better days—maybe a hundred years ago. “You’re to fly in this.”

John closed his eyes, tilted his head, then opened them again and smiled humourlessly. “This really isn’t funny, Mycroft.”

Mycroft sighed and tapped his umbrella end firmly upon the roof. “If only it were, John. I assure you, it flies.”

John looked away, shaking his head and biting his lip. “Why?” he asked, in a resigned sigh. “Why does it fly?”

“Why does the sleigh fly?” Mycroft countered. “I’m neither a physicist nor an engineer, Dr. Watson; when it comes to this particular realm of reality, I find it unhelpful to question it.”

“Why a _canoe_?” John persisted, turning back to him; he was starting to get frankly fed up with all of this…strangeness. There was only so much of the bizarre one man could deal with at a time before it became too much—and he’d had an entire _month_ of stuff that couldn’t be explained, not even by the Holmeses, which was saying something.

“I imagine that based upon the lifestyle of the Canadian aboriginals and that of the _voyageurs_ during the time of the legend’s conception and popularity, a canoe was the logical vehicle of choice,” Mycroft explained, then added, “I had it sent for from relations in Quebec when you contacted me from Wyoming.”

John raised his eyes to the sky as if pleading a higher authority. “A flying canoe.”

“Yes,” Mycroft said, then added, with that subdued undercurrent of ironic amusement that was particular to him, “And, if the legend is to be believed, the vehicle by which a few lonely loggers in the wilderness are returned to their sweethearts for a night of dancing and merriment on New Year’s Eve. How _very_ fitting, wouldn’t you agree?”

John lowered his gaze and, _god,_ Mycroft was making that face that John despised—the ‘we both know what’s going on here’ face—and though both Mycroft and Sherlock shared it, the expression always looked disgustingly smugger on the elder Holmes. Well, he had better things to do than endure Mycroft’s manner of teasing now.

John squared his shoulders and fixed the older Holmes brother with a steady gaze. “Yes, I agree. So how do you get it flying?”

Mycroft blinked and tilted his head a minute degree, seeming to evaluate him. Then, the hint of a smile. He looked back to the canoe. “It is quite simple—you get inside, say a word, and paddle. However, I should caution you: you mustn't say the Lord’s name or touch a cross at any point in time while you’re in it, or it will stop flying.”

John squinted. “Why?”

“It is reportedly the conditions set down by the Devil, who bestowed it on the loggers,” Mycroft replied, smirking. “Though I daresay anyone who has tested those conditions has not lived to tell whether they are true.”[34]

John balked. “You’re sending me in a _demonically possessed_ flying canoe?!”

“Yes.” In John’s opinion, Mycroft looked like he was enjoying this reveal too much; his eyes were practically _glinting._ [35]

John turned full around and swiped a hand down his face, shaking his head. _For Sherlock,_ he reminded himself, then nodded and turned about-face. “All right.”

“Ah, there’s the soldier,” Mycroft quipped, stepping back a pace to let John get by him to the canoe. “Ever-ready to charge into the unknown.”

For some reason, as John had cautiously put one foot into the canoe and Mycroft had said ‘the unknown,’ John was unexpectedly flooded with the memory of being in Greg’s house, and a whirl of confusion buffeted him. “Mycroft,” John said, briefly shaking his head to clear the thought-tornado, “why did you let Greg see you twice?”

As he looked back, he found Mycroft blinking in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”

“When you’ve been Father Christmas, why did you let Greg see you more than once? Sherlock said that was unusual,” John repeated. The nudging feeling that he now recognised as coming from the ‘spirit’ intensified—apparently, that part of Sherlock wanted an answer.

Mycroft scoffed. “That’s hardly important, you ought to—”

“If it’s not important, then you can tell me,” John blurted, then shut his mouth tightly. _Ease off, Sherlock,_ he mentally chided, shooing the nudging feeling to the back of his mind.

Mycroft looked at him askance, mouth pulling into a frown as thick as molasses. He raised his chin disdainfully. “I would not expect you to understand my reasoning.”

“Try me.”

“I believe you have more _pressing_ concerns at the moment, John.”

“Yeah, but Greg’s my friend, too,” John insisted, “and you’re clearly doing something even Sherlock thinks is odd for you. Not that I really care what _you_ do, but Sherlock does take an interest in his friends, whether he admits it or not.”

Mycroft sighed and rolled his eyes. “For heaven’s sake, it’s hardly anything worth _gossiping_ over.” He fixed John with an impatient glare. “If you _must_ know, it’s simply a matter of network reinforcement.”

John snorted. “‘Network reinforcement’?”

Mycroft Holmes’s expression soured even further. “ _Yes._ Perhaps Sherlock is too short-sighted to envision it, but one day the Detective Inspector will rise to become Detective Chief Superintendent of the Met’s CID, a position of some influence within the London police force, so it will inevitably be useful to garner his loyalty.”

By this time, John was equally amused and perplexed. “And you plan to do that by showing up at his house sometimes as Father Christmas?”

Mycroft rubbed at his temples. “Oh, why do I bother? It’s like talking to infants.”

“ _Oi,_ ” John objected, frowning. “I think I can follow along just fine if you’d give me a chance, ta.”

Mycroft sighed again, breath gusting out in a cloud, before giving John a more measured look. “Tell me, John, before the invention of television and newspapers, how do you suppose people learned to recognise important personages even if they never saw them in person?”

John blinked. That was rather off-topic…though not exactly strange for a Holmesian line of thought. “Er…paintings, I guess?” he hazarded.

Mycroft nodded solemnly. “Good, and how else? What do you always carry with you as you go about your day—what would you never leave home without?”

“Um…keys, wallet? Money?”

“Exactly,” Mycroft punctuated, reaching into a pocket of his coat and pulling out a billfold, then a ten pound note. He held it up between two fingers, with the Queen’s moonlit image facing toward John. “You keep an image of your sovereign in your pocket wherever you go—an officially commissioned portrait in which a great deal of effort has been expended to present her at her most regal. It is likely you don’t think of it often. But on occasion, have you ever looked at Her Majesty’s portrait and felt a sense of reverence?”

John stared at him. “…Not really, to be honest. But you’re…trying to impress him, somehow?”

“I’m providing a fundamental reminder,” Mycroft stated, putting the money and billfold away. “He already knows I’m influential, but the force of that gets lost when he has seen me on a semi-occasional basis; one has to present a more prominent appearance from time to time to keep things in check.” He gave John a knowing look. “You would know that, living with Sherlock—the importance of an image.”

John’s mouth quirked up at one side. “I guess. Though I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think your plan is working.”

Mycroft’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

John stepped fully into the canoe. “Well, when we saw him, he said you were ‘as charming as stale bread,’ so I don’t think it’s working.” He sat down and discovered an oar beside him. “Perhaps you could do what Sherlock does and start a favour system if you want ‘network reinforcement.’ Or you could just try being nice sometimes.”

When John looked up, he discovered that he’d apparently managed to disgust his not-exactly-brother-in-law. “It’s not that hard, you know,” he added, just to rub it in.

Mycroft merely grimaced and said, “It’s high past time you should be on your way, John.”

“All right, all right,” John conceded, picking up the oar. Suddenly, he felt a gentle nudge from the spirit—not demanding, but like a whispered reminder. “Oh,” he said, blinking, “by the way, that family that got taken in for questioning—you might be interested in learning more from the father. It sounds like his son got into a bad crowd—the kind of crowd _we’ve_ met before, I think—and they were trying to get away from it. It could be worth looking into—I promised you’d help them out; they’ll be cooperative if you tell them I sent you.”

Mycroft raised an eyebrow. “Thank you, I shall.”

John nodded, oar in hand, and braced his feet against the floor of the canoe. “Okay, I’m ready.”

Mycroft stepped forward. “There is a compass in your inner coat pocket, and a blanket and a coffee thermos behind you.”

“Ta.”

“I’ll remind you once again not to say the Lord’s name while in flight.”

“Yeah, I got it. Let’s go.”

“All right,” Mycroft said, offering a polite, civil servant smile. “Happy New Year, John. Give Sherlock and Mummy my regards.” He placed a hand on the canoe’s prow and declared, calm as you please, “ _Volez._ ”

John was not sure what he had been expecting—perhaps a dramatic levitation or a whimsical _woosh_ with magical sparks—but it was certainly not for the canoe to spring fifty feet into the air like a demonic jack-in-the-box. “JE-IMINY FUCK,” he hollered, only just remembering the commandment in time. Once his heart stopped trying to leap out of his chest and he’d caught his breath again, he discovered that the canoe was no longer apparently moving, but merely hovering in place high above the buildings below.

“Right, so…north,” he whispered to himself, fishing the compass out of his coat pocket and finding the direction he was to go. He looked to the starry horizon and felt a harsh breeze stab at his cheeks. He lifted Sherlock’s scarf higher to cover his mouth. “Against the wind, then,” he sighed, then started to paddle into the air.

The canoe, slowly at first, began drifting in the direction John steered, gradually picking up speed until it peaked above the clouds and soared like an albatross to the lands of mist and snow, where Sherlock was waiting, immersed in music that wouldn’t play.[36]

 

* * *

[32] Mummy’s (or her apparition’s) appearances are a slight tip of the hat to Charles Dickens’s short story “The Signal-Man,” first published in 1866.  I haven’t actually read it myself—Dickens and I have a longstanding enmity towards one another—but I have seen the television adaptation from the BBC series _A Ghost Story For Christmas_ , and it is quite chilling; I recommend it if you go for more ‘unsettling’ type of horror rather than jump-scare type horror.  There isn’t anything ‘Christmasy’ about the story itself, but it was the cultural custom of Victorian England to tell ghost stories at Christmastime (“The Signal-Man” was in fact published in the Christmas edition of _All the Year Round_ ).

[33] “Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age….The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength….It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful…. **from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light** …and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm. Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality….so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: **being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a body** …” - Charles Dickens, _A Christmas Carol_ : “Stave 2: The First of the Three Spirits” (1843) [emphasis my own].

In case it wasn’t obvious way back in Chapter 19 where I was drawing inspiration from for the Past Spirit, we have the reveal!  AND IT’S A THING OF NIGHTMARES!  WTF CHUCK, WHY DID YOU MAKE IT HAVE MANY, MANY LIMBS AND OCCASIONAL HEADLESSNESS??  (It’s ’cause it’s supposed to represent the many, many years of the past or something.  He was a symbolic writer.) Though where Dickens’s version and mine differ slightly is that I emphasized the role of fire/candlelight more in mine to hearken back to the role that fire/candlelight has played in past and present Yule/Winter Solstice celebrations, which has been touched on to a degree in the St. Lucia’s Day section (the Scandinavian tradition just freaking LOVES the candles, man, there are SO MANY CAROLS ABOUT IT…SO VERY, VERY MANY…).

[34] 3, 2, 1 – **CANADA!!!!!!!!!**

Here we have one of our most _awesome_ legends, hailing from Quebec, and one of my personal favourites: “ _La Chasse-Galerie_ ” (literal translation: “The Hunt-Gallery,” which is in reference to one of the legend’s source materials—the Wild Hunt [see footnote 2 way back in Chapter 2], which in this ONE SPECIFIC REGION IN FRANCE called Poitou is led by somebody called the ‘Lord of Gallery’ [a mythical nobleman who loved hunting SO MUCH he refused to go to Sunday mass and was so punished for his sin by being chased endlessly through the night sky by demons, etc.] and the name stuck and apparently got carried over when Quebec was being settled by the French), or as it is called in English “The Flying Canoe.” There are several different variants of the story, but the most famous one was written by Honoré Beaugrand in 1892, which you can read in its entirety [here](https://www.ragandbone.ca/PDFs/chasse_galerie_1892.pdf), if you so choose to indulge in ~LA CULTURE DE MA PATRIE~.

The version *I* personally know best is the one detailed by Mycroft above; some variants have it happening on Christmas; in some variants, the loggers don’t escape the devil’s pact and are condemned to fly through hell and appear in the night sky every New Year’s Eve; there are even versions where it’s not a canoe at all but some other vehicle like a giant axe or a codfish bowl or an upside-down carriage, etc.; in short, there’s a lot of variety. An interesting thing about Quebec myths and legends is that, for one thing, they’re usually tied up in transgressions against the Church (the Catholic Church, specifically…Protestantism isn’t A Thing in Quebec) or have some sort of mischief involving the Devil—but, oddly enough, the Devil is sometimes seen as more of a trickster figure than an outright Evil of All Evils, depending on what legend he features in (or at least, that is the often the case with this particular legend).

If you wanna watch a Piece of My Childhood itself, you can also check out the animated short produced by The National Film Board of Canada [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNl5fuEh23g). Be warned, though: it’s in Quebecois French, and heck, even I don’t entirely know what they’re saying half the time, but it’s cool to check out for the music and Ye Classic Canadian Animation Style Of Olde, if nothing else. If you know the basic gist of the story, you should be able to follow along more or less (there’s also an unsubtle ‘Drinking Is Bad’ subtext in there with Drunk Guy Who Nearly Makes Us Die By Breaking The Devil’s Rules, but that was also in Beaugrand’s version, which this one is based off of).

There’s also [this other animated short](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuHkRWO1obM) I came across in my researching which looks pretty badass. Full confession, though: I entirely don’t understand what happens at the end, and it does employ the dreaded Bury Your Gays trope, so be forewarned there. But, y’know, it still looks pretty badass, style-wise.

There’s also [this fun song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efpdOA4y5IE) by _La Bottine Souriante_ about the legend. You won’t understand a word of it! But it’s fun! And it also seems to employ Bad End Chasse-Galerie in which the loggers are condemned to fly through the sky every New Year’s Eve, from what I’m able to garner from it. BUT IT’S FUN!! :D

Lastly, have a painting by Henri Julien (1906), just because: 

There are scores more other paintings and knickknacks depicting the subject (it’s that popular a legend in Quebec), so look ‘em up on Google if you’re interested! CANADA!!!! :D

[35] Me: **physically trying to restrain Mark Gatiss Himself from jumping into this fic, and failing**  Look I tried really hard but he really wanted to be in this fic at this moment and I just could not stop him.  He’s here now.

[36] Tip of the hat to Coleridge’s _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_  (1798), which is _technically_  about the South Pole but WHATEVER, it’s my story.  :P

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Disclaimer** : Just an additional disclaimer on my part regarding U.S. air marshals - I think it's very highly possible/likely that the air marshal could've known the security codes prior to boarding the plane, but uh...the thing of it is, when you're researching U.S. air marshals, they really, _really_ don't actually want you to know the details of what they do or all that much about them in general (they don't even tell you how many there are, just a vague approximation). Same principle goes for detailed airplane security measures in some circumstances; they kinda don't want you to know who knows what the codes are or how many numbers are in a code (I was able to find that senior flight attendants know the codes, but do air marshals??? A mystery). Which is understandable - the government doesn't exactly _want_ the general curious public or innocent writers to know how to hijack a plane or how to target one of their air marshals, but it sure makes my job difficult when it comes to conveying accuracy to the best of my ability. ^^;;
> 
> So in situations like this, where I can't find a definitive yes/no answer to something important, I tend to err on the side of what I *do* know is accurate and work from there, rather than assume; I risk being inaccurate either way, but at least in this case I can have my footing on stuff I know is true. It doesn't hurt that it also ups the tension a bit, but that's mostly just a side benefit. :)
> 
> P.S. Don't hijack planes, even for good reasons. Just...don't do it. It's generally just not a good idea. Please don't hurt me TSA.


	23. New Year's

John Watson was not lost. That was impossible; he had a compass, he knew how to operate it, and he was not an idiot. The directions were straightforward: go north until you can’t anymore, and you’re there.

What he had not counted on were the wind currents. Flying over England and Scotland had been relatively easy, but once he’d started over the North Atlantic, it’d become an entirely different game. The demonic canoe still behaved like a canoe in the air as it would in the water: John battled every knock of the wind trying to capsize him, and it felt like he was spending half the time trying to keep the damned thing from tipping him into the frigid ocean below.

Not to mention, the currents kept pushing him off course. Over the land, they had been blowing directly into his face, which was exhausting to paddle against, but he’d managed. For a while over the ocean they’d actually ended up working in his favour—pushing him speedily onwards. But now they were persistently trying to turn him west—south and west, to be specific. Each time he’d checked the compass, he found he was drastically off the mark from mere minutes ago.

To top it off, he was colder than he’d ever been in his life, he’d finished off the coffee an hour ago, and there was an ashen, sulfuric smell in the air that could only mean the remnants of the volcanic eruption were catching up to him. He’d been at it for seven hours, and his arms were trembling from exhaustion and cold. The sky was pitch-dark. He had no idea how fast he was going and no way of knowing if he was even close to there yet.

 _But at least I’m not lost_ , he reassured himself, shivering as he took a break from paddling to tuck his hands into his armpits.

Once he could feel his fingers moving in his gloves again, he picked up the oar once more with a sigh and wearily resumed paddling. His back was killing him. His arse felt numb. His arms were screaming. His eyes were dry and stinging from the frigid air stabbing into them, and he was coughing every five minutes in a poor attempt to relieve the scratchy, tickling feeling in his throat that the ash was causing, no matter that there was a scarf blocking out the worst of it.

A sudden, powerful gust knocked sideways against the canoe, and in the scramble to keep himself from plummeting to a watery grave, John dropped the oar.

He watched in horror as it whipped erratically through the air and disappeared into the black, roiling waves below. “ _Sh-sh-sh-SHIT,_ ” he hissed, clinging to both sides of the canoe, vainly trying to keep it steady. The wind was pushing the vessel, driving them southwest at god-knows-what speed.

This was worse than being lost. He was _stranded._

He thrust an arm over the side and desperately mimed paddling. The canoe responded—sluggishly. But he could see that there was no hope that his slower, manual paddling could outpace the force of the wind; it was like a butterfly against a hurricane.

He squeezed his eyes shut and clung to the canoe, releasing a single, wretched sob. “ _F-f-f-f-fuck th-this,_ ” he whispered, “ _F-FUCK th-this f-fucking b-b-boat._ ”

 _It always comes in threes_ , he remembered dismally. Maybe this was the third time she’d meant all along. After all he’d done, he _still_ wouldn’t get back to Sherlock. It felt like the punchline to a horrible joke, the kind that the maker of the canoe would enjoy. He hung his head. There was nothing he could do now except try to keep the boat afloat and…pray. Not aloud. Just him and the soulless sounds of the wind and the ocean as they ripped him from the person he loved most.

***

Hours passed. John opened his eyes again and sensed that he was _much_ farther away than before; on checking the compass, he found they were still steadily heading southwest. He sighed and tried to get a look at his surroundings. There was a small collection of crags below, crashing waves, and chunks of ice floating indifferently among it all. Nowhere significant.

It occurred to him, not for the first time, that he might die out here. He wondered how—or even if—he would be discovered. Was he sitting in his own grave? Would the canoe just keep flying? A morbid part of him couldn’t help smiling a little at the idea that perhaps he’d make it into the papers as the first man found dead in a UFO. Or maybe he’d just fly in the air forever like a substandard Flying Dutchman, bringing new sailors’ and pilots’ legends to life.

Though when he thought about it rationally, it was more likely that the canoe would eventually tip the dead weight out, and he’d just be yet another body for the ocean to take, like so many others. His smile faded.

He wasn’t going to see Sherlock again.

The sky was too overcast for stars. After a time, he began to see snow falling, but it wasn’t normal snow, greyed as it was with ash. As it started to collect in the bottom of the canoe and across the blanket tucked around his legs, John thought it looked as though he and the canoe were starting to blend in with the grey-washed landscape—as if they were being erased from the picture.

Then something caught his eye in the far distance—a pale, green light.

For a moment he believed it was the northern lights, but it seemed too small for that, and lacking in the signature ribbon shape that they tended to have. St. Elmo’s fire, maybe?

As he watched the distant green anomaly go towards the east, it suddenly stopped…and turned around. John squinted. No weather phenomenon he knew of could do that.

It was getting bigger.

“Oh n-no,” he whispered, heart starting to pummel in his chest. With all the luck he’d been having, maybe it was a plane about to run him over—or even, god forbid, the actual Flying Dutchman come to take him away. It could be anything. It could be some unheard-of ghost no one had bothered to warn him about coming to eat him.

But whatever it was, it was gaining speed, and he was completely defenceless. He shut his eyes, shivering violently.

Then he heard sleigh bells.

Eyes flying open, he leaned forward, trying to see the light better. “SH-SHERLOCK!” he called, coughing heavily immediately after.

Recovering, John squinted through the greying snowfall and saw that the green light was accompanied by a smaller red light at its forefront. Bells jangled chaotically against the wind, waves crashed and fused, and out of the darkness came Rudolph like an avenging spirit.

The reindeer paused beside the canoe: he was rider-less and did not have his antlered friends with him, but John couldn’t care less. _Something_ , at last, had come to save him. He reached out a gloved hand, and the reindeer promptly stuffed his nose into it with an affectionate snort.

“B-b-boy am-m I glad-d t-to s-s-see you,” John whispered. Rudolph stretched his neck out further, wanting more petting, which John provided; as he did so, he discovered that the reindeer had a length of rope attached to his harness. John unwound and retied the rope on a hook at the front of the canoe and ensured that one end was still attached to the reindeer. “T-take us h-home,” he commanded, and Rudolph obediently trotted in place to the front and surged forward.

The abrupt speed burst was strong enough that John fell flat against the bottom of the canoe. It seemed that though Rudolph was still too young to handle the weight of the sleigh, he could handle a single occupant in an old canoe just fine, and he was amazingly fast—faster than the canoe’s capabilities, that was for certain, and he pierced through the boisterous air currents like a bullet.

John’s heart soared, and soon he was laughing—and coughing—breathlessly.

***

When Rudolph began to take them down, John lifted himself up to look over the side of the canoe. From this height, the North Pole complex was nearly indistinguishable from its surroundings; it resembled a lump of snow, unremarkable from other lumps of snow except for the fact that he could see golden light flooding out from what he presumed was the open stable door and a pole in the distance emitting white light. It was the most welcoming sight he’d seen in a week, and as they drew rapidly closer and its details fleshed out to include smaller windows of light, John breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank Christ,” he murmured, and the canoe dropped like an old boot.

It happened so fast that he only realised what he’d done when he blinked back to awareness with snow mashed against his face and Rudolph insistently nudging at his shoulder with his hot-puffing snout.

“Ow,” John concluded. “That was bloody stupid of me.”

He’d ended up on his back, and he took a deep breath and began testing his fingers and toes. Luckily, they all still moved. His right shoulder hurt like hell, though, as did his right hip and knee, which he deduced was probably the side he’d initially landed on. Gingerly, he tested moving them further. Knee felt banged up but nothing too severe; hip felt severely bruised; shoulder felt sharp enough that it _could_ be broken but he wasn’t immediately sure. He probably also had another bump on his head somewhere, but compared to the shoulder it was negligible. Nevertheless, John was sure he would live, and that was the main thing.

His first attempt at sitting up ended up with him flat on the ice again as his overexerted back muscles protested. The second attempt succeeded, and using Rudolph as a crutch he even managed to stand up and limp his way over to the stable.

As soon as Rudolph stuck his nose into the doorway, they were greeted with shrieks of delight. John winced.

“John Watson!! JOHN WATSON!!! Get _matushka,_ John Watson is back!!!” was the general clamour as John was surrounded by a small gathering of elves.

He pulled down his scarf as he heard the outside door being slid shut behind him. “Where’s…Sherlock?” he gasped.

Before they could answer him, Mummy Holmes came bursting into the stable in a rush of frozen air, and she seemed…a lot taller than John remembered. Her eyes, pale as flint, locked on him.

“WHERE ON EARTH HAVE YOU BEEN?” she roared, storming towards him.

“ _I got here as fast as I bloody could,_ ” John growled, too much in pain to put up with all this noise. Before he could say any more, he was swept into a hug. The most he could manage was a small “oof” as his nose collided with her shoulder. It was like being held by an ice pack.

“You’ve had us worried _sick,_ ” she hissed. “Not _one word_ from you in all that time, and then you’re _late_ coming back; we had to send Rudolph out to find you. I was fearing the worst.”

“I didn’t know writing you was an option,” John replied, pushing himself out of her arms a little to look over her shoulder. “Where’s Sherlock?”

It was then he noticed the heavy silence surrounding them: the elves, after their initial excitement at seeing him, had gone timid and moved on silent feet. Even the reindeer weren’t shuffling or sniffling in their stalls. It was like walking into a morgue.

Mrs. Holmes was statuesque; the pinched furrow on her brow was set so deeply into her pale skin it looked as though it had been carved to stay.

“Oh God, what’s happened?” John whispered, shivering, stifling a cough.

She shook her head. “You’d best come see for yourself,” she murmured, “maybe you can do something.” She gestured to the door.

John wanted to run out that door, he wanted to get there as fast as he could, but as soon as he set his right foot down, pain shot up from his knee and hip.

Her eyes widened. “You’re injured.”

He winced, nodding stiffly. “Bad landing. Got my shoulder, too.”

Without a word, she went to his right side and slipped an arm around his waist to steady him, helping him limp out of the stables and down the corridors. Everything was still. Even the candles on the tree had burnt out, and his breath still condensed in front of him. Unsmiling elves stared at him with huge, pleading eyes. This was worse than when Sherlock had been avoiding him, much worse. The very air tasted like ice, not like it had before, when it had smelt of warm baking and woodwork and pine trees. Between here and the wasteland beyond the walls, there was no difference—except that here, the wind did not blow.

Foreboding fell into his gut when they hobbled into the family corridor and John saw ice crusted on the floor. When they turned into the living room, he gasped, eyes wide.

The entire room had frozen over, from ceiling to floor, with ice enveloping every surface in a three inch barrier. Icicles hung like teeth from the fireplace mantle and snooker table. Sherlock was hunched over in his chair by the empty fire, elbows on his knees and hands clutching his head—but he wasn’t encrusted in ice. He _was_ ice, inside and out, as clear as glass, and placed as though some dark-minded sculptor had shaped him and set him in a dollhouse set.

“ _Sherlock,_ ” John breathed, unconsciously trying to rush forward before Mummy stopped him, whispering about him slipping. But he kept pushing onwards, his mind swarming with images of Sherlock shattering into snow and flying out of his grip, and he had to—he couldn’t—he _couldn’t_ be too late, it had been a dream, it _had_ to have been a dream. With Mummy’s help, he scrambled down into the living room, feet skidding, until he was next to Sherlock.

His ability to stand quickly left him as he saw for certain there was nothing…else underneath the ice—no human beneath a frozen shell—and Mummy was lowering him to the floor as her strength gradually weakened. John’s sprained knee was screaming murder as he knelt in front of Sherlock, but he was numb to it, trying to see Sherlock’s face beneath the arch of his frozen arms. It looked like Sherlock’s eyes had been closed, his expression set in a grimace.

“How…” John heard himself asking, “…How did this happen? When?”

“I don’t know,” Mummy said quietly, “but I found him like this on Boxing Day.”

“That long?” John said, looking up at her. His face hardened. “Haven’t you done anything to fix him?”

“Yes, of course,” she retorted. “Do you think we would not try? We’ve attempted fire, salt, and even hot water, but nothing worked. He wouldn’t melt even a little.” Her expression crinkled. “But even if it _had_ worked to some degree, I am not sure melting him would have been the solution; I fear it would disassemble him—essentially kill him. We had to be cautious with what we tried, but even those attempts showed no results.”

“Oh god,” John whispered, shaking his head as he looked back at Sherlock. He had no idea what to do. This wasn’t something his medical training could fix. “He’s not…He’s not already…?” he asked, swallowing a knot in his throat.

“I don’t think so,” she replied, and he breathed out a sigh of relief. “We would have been able to tell—and Mycroft would have known. But he’s…” She placed a hand on her son’s frozen shoulder, her expression troubled and confused. She tapped the icy shoulder with a nail, making a soft _chik, chik, chik_ sound. “…It is as though he isn’t here. Like this is a placeholder.”

John chewed his lip and looked at her once more. “Mycroft said something about how I have the Ghost of Christmas Past inside me. Would that have something to do with it?”

Her eyebrows jumped, and she reached out and tilted his jaw upwards a little. She squinted at him through soapstone-coloured eyes. “ _Bozhe moy,_ ” she murmured, “so you do. I didn’t know that could be done.”

“Mycroft said the same.”

“It may have _something_ to do with it,” she stated. “Though it is only a piece of him. However…it might be the _warmest_ piece.”

“Maybe that’s it!” John said, bursting into a grin. “I just have to give it back to him! How would I do that?”

“I would not know,” Mummy answered, “seeing as I’ve never heard of it being done before. How did he give it to you?”

“…Oh,” John breathed, reddening slightly as he looked away. He cleared his throat. “Well, that makes it easy, then,” he declared, then leaned forward, awkwardly wedged his face in under Sherlock’s arms, and pressed his lips on the smooth, frozen ones of his lover. He gently exhaled warm air and lightly ran his tongue against the seam of their mouths so he could escape the frozen seal, and pulled away.

His fingers clenched the denim on his thighs as he anxiously waited.

But nothing happened. Not even a drop of melting moisture.

“Why—why didn’t it work?! That should’ve worked!” His head whipped toward Mummy. “But that—that always works, that’s supposed to _always_ work!”

She swiftly knelt down on one knee and placed a hand on John’s shoulder. “John, panicking won’t solve this.”

“You’re supposed to be the expert on fairy tales, aren’t you? Why didn’t it work?”

“I don’t know. But that remedy is actually far less common in the old tales than you might think, so I would not put much stock in its capabilities,” she replied.[37]

He made a frustrated noise, looking from Sherlock to Mrs. Holmes. “Well, how did _you_ become human?”

She sighed. “I told you once already. I forsook the snow and married the man who became my husband.”

“That’s _it_? No kiss, no—?” He made an aimless gesture. “I thought you said it was because you fell in love! You just… _left_?”

Her voice was steady. “Falling in love warmed me up to the idea of joining humanity, certainly, though I still had to make the choice to leave for anything to happen. Kissing wasn’t involved with us for a while even after we were married.”

“Oh, great. The one thing that could’ve worked, and it’s a complete cop-out.” He ran a hand over his face, taking a deep breath in an attempt to steady his nerves. By now his knee was throbbing, and he awkwardly slumped over to his left to relieve the pain with a wince. “And he’s already in love, so that can’t be it.” He rubbed at his knee, casting his gaze down by Sherlock’s feet dejectedly.

It was then John noticed that underneath the ice coating the floor, there were several sheets of paper. He squinted, trying to see what was on them, then examined the wider area surrounding Sherlock’s chair. From what he could see, there were papers scattered everywhere beneath the ice—dozens and dozens of sheets. He looked again at the nearest ones, but couldn’t make much out.

“What was he writing?”

“Music, I believe,” Mummy answered, gesturing to an abandoned violin at the foot of the fireplace that was—like everything else—covered in ice.

John frowned. “Again?” He scrutinised Sherlock’s face, which was petrified in emotional turmoil. Sherlock had been composing something the last time he’d been in a frosty state, but John had never seen the results of that venture come to fruition, whatever—or whomever—they had been for. “…Or still?”

“I do not know,” Mummy said. “He was aloof when he returned: he told us what happened, but he was not inclined to say much else. I figured he was worried—and when he gets a certain way, it is sometimes better to let him sort it out on his own for a little while, so I left him to compose in peace. I thought we’d make a fresh start for a plan of some sort the following day, but then I discovered him like this.”

“Do you think the music might be a clue to fixing him?” John suggested.

“I don’t know how we’d be able to use it—unless you can play?” John shook his head. She continued, “I cannot play either. One of the _domovyye_ might be able to, but we’d have to figure out what order the sheets are in—and there are several crossed-out sections and corrections on them, from what I can see.” She was leaning over to examine one close to her. “And a few that fell face-down. I don’t think it would be possible.”

John sighed, rubbing his face once again in distress, then slamming his good hand down on the ice. “Why isn’t there _anything_? What if he _stays_ like this, and—and we never get him back?”

“We don’t know if that’s the case,” Mummy replied.

“We don’t know if it’s _not_ ,” John snapped. “It’s already been a week, and apparently me being back solves _nothing._ ”

“What did you do last time?” she asked, ignoring his outburst.

John blinked. “Last time?”

“Yes, the previous time when he was freezing over. If the music sheets are any indication, he was reacting similarly this time to how he was reacting then, so perhaps the solution is the same as before,” she reasoned.

John searched through the annals of his memory, then mentally tripped, stumbled, and fell down a flight of stairs when he came upon the answer to her question. He flushed heavier than he had the first time he’d asked a girl on a date.

“I—uh. Hm. Um, I-I don’t think that’s. It. No. No, no, I don’t think that’s. No.”

“Why not? Shouldn’t you at least try it?” she insisted, completely earnest.

John refused to look at her. “Well, it’s just—” He cleared his throat. “—you know, and-and I don’t know if he can hear us anyway, so I’m not sure if it would work.”

“That’s not a reason not to try!” she persevered, starting to sound frustrated.

“ _Look,_ we aren’t doing that, all right?” he snapped, “There was nothing magical about it, so it _can’t_ be the bloody solution! We’ll just think of something else!”

When she responded, her voice was stern, as if she were lecturing a child, “John, it is already New Year’s Eve by London time and soon will be the beginning of New Year’s Day in the places that we need to go. Do we have the luxury to think up other solutions when we have an untried one already at our disposal?”

John quickly checked his watch and found that she was right—it was twenty to noon. He rubbed at his eyes, and with a growl, he wobbled to his feet using an armrest to pull himself up. He leant his weight on his hands planted on either side of Sherlock, growling at the sharp pain in his shoulder and burning throb of his hip and knee. John glared down at the immobile helictites of Sherlock’s hair.

“ _Sherlock Holmes,_ ” he hissed, frustration mounting as pain reverberated up and down his right side, “I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but I dragged myself _halfway across the globe_ just to get here only to find you haven’t moved in a _bloody week_ , and you’re not fucking _allowed_ to do this to me.” His eyes flicked searchingly for some sign of movement, chest starting to heave in panic, and he felt the world narrowing down to just the two of them. “No, no, no, you’re not doing this to me, Sherlock. Not this time. You’ve ignored me before, but I’m not having it. You’re going to come back because I said so, because I—” He sucked in a breath. “—because I love you, and because I hope to _god_ you still love me because this is just _not on_ , and…” He trailed off, biting his lip, blinking furiously, and. Nothing. _Happened._

He slammed a fist on the armrest. “FOR GOD’S SAKE, _snap out of it, soldier!_ ” he snarled.

A loud, sharp crack pierced the air, and John jolted backwards instinctively with a gasp, losing his balance on the ice and falling heavily on his arse, cringing. He gaped at the sight in front of him: a large fissure had zigzagged down Sherlock’s face and torso, and smaller veins were snapping and cracking into being, with flecks and chunks of ice breaking off and landing noisily around the armchair—and Sherlock, extremely pale and somewhat bluish Sherlock, but flesh-and-blood Sherlock nonetheless, emerged.

With a mighty gasp, cough, and wheeze, Sherlock breathed, and he lowered his arms and opened his eyes. He blinked fuzzily at John.

“Did you…” Sherlock began, pausing for a brief cough, “…Did you just call me ‘soldier’?”

“What,” John breathed.

“What,” Sherlock echoed.

“ _Sherlock,_ ” Mummy gasped, rushing forward to wrap her arms around him. She was golden and rose with relief. “Oh, my son, thank goodness you’ve come back.”

He patted one of her arms affectionately but absently, blinking owlishly and frowning in befuddlement. Then John witnessed the exact moment when his awareness returned—it was like seeing tarnished silver suddenly shine bright and new, and his eyes were fixed on John.

“John!” Sherlock boomed, scrambling out of his seat, though evidently he had not regained control of his limbs yet because he ended up falling on top of him.

John, flat on his back on an increasingly soggy floor, did not overly mind the sudden extra weight, because his heart was kicking ecstatically in his chest and he was burying his fingers in the damp but _real,_ soft tendrils of Sherlock’s hair.

“You—you bloody git,” he whispered, closing his eyes with relief. His broad grin was unstoppable, starting to pinch with the stretch. “Don’t you dare scare me like that again.”

“You came back,” Sherlock said, muffled into John’s coats until he managed to hold himself up on one elbow and manoeuvre himself so he was face-to-face with John. His eyes were sparkling, vividly purple, and he wore his rarest smile—the one John would sell his heart for if it weren’t already so thoroughly indebted to the man above him. “You came back,” he repeated, hushed.

“Of course I did,” John murmured, lifting a hand to brush at his cheek, revelling in the feel of skin and faint roughness of stubble. “I said I would, didn’t I?”

Sherlock just closed his eyes, still smiling, and sighed, then lowered himself down until he was snuggled up against John once more, pressing his cold nose into John’s cheek. John patted his back and tried to ignore the melting ice seeping into his clothes, shutting his eyes as well.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw Mummy smiling down at them, hands raised in her ‘mental snapshot’ position. “Sherlock,” she said softly.

Sherlock made the approximation of a reply.

“Sherlock, you have to get up now,” she said.

“Whatime…izzit?” Sherlock garbled at her.

“It’s New Year’s Eve, Sherlock,” she replied.

Sherlock sprang to his feet with a splash. “WHAT?”

John envied the quick recovery of his limbs as he—much more slowly—managed to sit up.

“Why didn’t you _say_ something?” Sherlock barked, scrubbing a hand through his hair and starting to pace.

“I assure you, I said something at the first available moment,” she replied, before her tone took on a more worried note, “But there isn’t any time for you to sort the gifts before they’re due for delivery.”

“I am aware,” Sherlock growled, then stopped in his tracks as he noticed John wincing in his progress of standing up. “John, you’re injured,” he stated as he came forward to lend him a hand.

John took his hand gratefully and was finally back on his feet, much to the discomfort of his knee and hip. “Yeah, a bit. Think the shoulder has it worse, though; might be a hairline fracture on the clavicle, so a sling would be great.”

“Of course,” Sherlock said, then placed two fingers in his mouth and whistled, _hard_. John cringed, his ears ringing, nearly missing Sherlock commanding the elves to bring medical supplies.

Presumably at least one elf left to fulfil the order, but the rest of the horde swarmed down joyously and surrounded them, smaller feet splashing in the now ankle-deep water. “MASTER SHERLOCK!!! MASTER SHERLOCK, YOU’RE BACK!!”

John did not overlook how Sherlock protectively edged closer to him and secured a hand around his waist to hold him up, for which he was grateful, since half the elves were now also swarming _him_. “JOHN WATSON, YOU DID IT!!! THREE CHEERS FOR JOHN WATSON!!”

“SHUT UP, THE LOT OF YOU,” Sherlock roared, then reduced his volume to a gentlemanly snarl as they acquiesced, “ _Yes,_ I’m back, but we still have work to do, for god’s sake!”

“He’s right,” Mummy said at a perfectly normal volume, which somehow succeeded in quieting down the remaining titters of excitement among them. “We don’t have much time; go to your stations and get things in order, please.”

“ _Da, matushka!_ ” they chorused, and with a few last cheers, dashed off, Mummy following behind them like a shepherd.

It wasn’t an easy phenomenon to identify, but John could sense the internal clockwork of the North Pole grinding back into motion, and as he felt the gentle shift of Sherlock breathing beside him, a reassuring sensation of _rightness_ settled over him.

Sherlock breathed a sigh of relief, and John did the same.

“Come on, John, let’s get you somewhere…drier,” Sherlock said, beginning to guide him out of the now-flooded living room.

However, when John realised Sherlock was taking him to their room, he shook his head.

Sherlock paused their progress and frowned down at him. “John, you’re soaking wet, you need new clothes.”

“I’ll be fine,” John murmured, trying to subtly turn them around.

“John, there’s no point being self-sacrificing for no reason.”

“No, but I _know_ if you take me to the room you’re gonna abandon me in there on purpose, _I’m_ gonna fall asleep, and then after you’re done flouncing around by yourself out there you won’t be able to get back in the room because I’ll be absolutely out of commission,” John replied stubbornly, pushing harder to turn them around. “I’ve made it this far; I can keep going.”

“Oh for god’s sake,” Sherlock huffed, though he didn’t exactly deny the accusation. Instead, he swooped down and picked up John, carrying him princess-style, and turned them around towards the atrium.

John squawked, “ _Hey!_ You don’t have to—!”

“Shut up, John,” Sherlock cut him off, though without any real heat to it. “If you’re going to insist on being an idiot, I may as well let you play the part. Besides, this is faster.”

“Sherlock, I’m a grown man,” John retorted, though he sighed and let himself be carried through the hallways, relieved to be off his feet.

“An _injured_ grown man who’s lost at least a stone since I last saw him, if not more,” Sherlock replied, jostling him a bit to verify his mental calculations. “Nine kilos, perhaps.” Then he sent John a brief smile. “Not to worry, I’m stronger than I look.”

“Clearly,” John said dryly. “Show-off.”

“Tis the season,” Sherlock quipped, tromping confidently into the sorting room and gently depositing John on the bench.

Mummy, who’d been waiting in the room by the fireplace, looked puzzled. “I thought you were going to let John rest.”

John sent her a betrayed glare over Sherlock’s shoulder. She’d been in on that plan, too?

“Unfortunately, John chooses to be obstinate when it comes to undermining my good intentions,” Sherlock replied, straightening up and strolling to the fireplace, where he picked up the bowl of glittering ashes and dumped it into the fire, causing the flames to cascade to the ceiling in a burst of energy.

“What about the presents?” she asked, gesturing to the pile.

It was astronomically smaller than the pile from Christmas, and John would hazard it was also a bit smaller than the pile from St. Nicholas Day, but it was still not a number that Sherlock could power through in such a short time—even St. Nicholas Day had taken a full day for him to sort, and they had less than that.

Sherlock regarded the presents with indifference, one hand on his hip and head tilted slightly. Then, he smiled.

“Easy,” he rumbled, snapping his fingers and pointing to the doorway, where a handful of elves were waiting in nervous silence. “Fetch the sleigh.”

The elves looked at each other, then scampered to fulfil the request.

“But you’re out of time,” John spoke up, eyeing the hoard. “And you haven’t even consulted The List at all.”

“Don’t need The List,” Sherlock replied, turning to John with a grin. “Because I’ve decided everyone’s been good this year.”

John blinked. “But—But don’t you need…?”

“Nope,” Sherlock said, popping the ‘p.’ He tapped his head. “All I need to know is if they have a fireplace or not; two factors—name and fireplace—I can handle that easily enough without an organiser at this number. Ah, good,” he said as the sleigh was pulled up the hallway. Then he bent his knees, eyes flashing gold, and began rifling through the line, pulling out presents here and there and hurling them in the direction of the elves manning the sleigh. It was like watching a machine claw picking out faulty products on an assembly line, effortlessly efficient.

John gaped. He felt more than heard Mummy settle next to him. “He’s really amazing,” John said after a moment.

“He is my son,” she said, gently touching John’s forearm to get his attention. When John turned to her, he saw she had a first aid kit in her lap and materials for a sling. “We ought to get you situated for the time being, though perhaps out of those coats first; they are surely weighing you down with all the water in them.”

John sighed and stood up to let her help him out of both of his coats—Sherlock’s borrowed coat and the thick blue one underneath—and immediately felt much lighter and, to an extent, drier. He held his right arm at a ninety degree angle and let Mummy secure the sling in place. His shoulder still twinged, but having the weight of his arm and the wet coats off it helped immensely, and he stopped involuntarily clenching his jaw and breathed easier.

When he returned his attention to Sherlock, he discovered that he was already nearing the end of the rows of presents. “Wow,” John whispered.

Sherlock suddenly straightened up and clapped his hands together as if ridding them of dust. “That’s the lot!” he called, coming back over to them with quick strides. He placed a hand on his mother’s shoulder. “Mummy, if you can handle the fireplace delivery, I’ll handle the sleigh.”

“Of course, _kotenok,_ ” she replied with a small smile, which her son returned.

“Good. Start now,” he said, and she called one of the panting elves over to ask them to bring something.

Sherlock immediately started towards the modestly filled sleigh, and John snatched his arm as he almost passed out of reach.

“And where are _you_ going?” John snapped, trying to suppress a sudden, inexplicable surge of panic.

Sherlock blinked down at him, eyebrows furrowed. “I thought it was obvious? I have to deliver the presents.”

“Not without me you’re not,” John retorted. It was hard to understand what he was feeling, or why it was happening so abruptly—it was a strange desperation, like Sherlock was his own skin trying to walk away from him, like there was some inherent _wrongness_ in separating them. He knew he wasn’t being logical, but the feeling itched and crawled all over him like a rash. He couldn’t let them be pulled apart again. He _couldn’t._

Sherlock scowled. “John, you can barely manage to walk on your own. You are not coming. You’ll only slow me down.”

“ _Then you are not going,_ ” he snarled, and he was startled to hear his own voice—because it sounded like _Sherlock’s,_ ragged and hoarse and several octaves deeper than John knew he registered on his own.

Sherlock’s eyes popped with surprise, then his mouth dropped open. “Ohhh,” he breathed, hinting at unspoken insight. He lifted a hand and placed it on John’s cheek, then slowly and gently swiped his thumb across John’s eyelid when it closed.

When he drew his hand away and John reopened his eyes, there was a tiny, tiny flame seated on the tip of Sherlock’s thumb.

“That explains a few things,” Sherlock said softly, looking from the fire on his thumb to John. The flame wisped out. He hummed and looked to his mother, who nodded to confirm his thoughts. Then he picked up the wet coats lying over the armrest of the bench and placed a steady hand on John’s free arm. His voice was gentle: “Come with me, John.”

John was awash with a strange, buzzing feeling, and he was unconsciously maintaining his focus on Sherlock like a searchlight, reluctant to be more than a step or two away from him. Sherlock guided them both towards the fireplace, and its heat poured over them.

“Just for a moment, and don’t step all the way through to the other side,” Sherlock was saying, and John was nodding unthinkingly, not even aware he’d taken Sherlock’s hand in a vice grip.

Sherlock guided them into the heart of the blaze, and for a moment, all John could hear was the unending roar of fire enveloping them as he closed his eyes. It was so warm. His skin was dancing. He was dry and charcoal and light and alive. When he opened his eyes, his beloved was there, emerald-eyed and green and smiling, and it was right, it was right, it was right, it was right _at last,_ and he lunged forward to kiss him, but his beloved smiled and pressed a hand over his mouth to stop him, shaking his head, and it was _wrong._

He felt like weeping. “ _No, why, why, why, why?_ ”

“ _Not yet, my dear. Not yet. Just a little longer,_ ” his beloved murmured soothingly, stroking his head as he pulled him closer.

He clung to that fresh, beautiful leaf, burying his face in his shoulder, yearning. “ _Please, please,_ ” he begged, not understanding, heart crumbling, distraught, desperate. “ _It’s been so long, so long, so long, so long._ ”

“ _Just a little longer, just a little more,_ ” his beloved insisted, holding onto him tightly, but not tight enough, not tight enough. “ _You’re holding him up, do you understand? You’re supporting him. You have to hold him up just a little longer, for me. Please do that for me._ ”

“ _Please, please, anything, I’ll do anything, anything for you, anything, please._ ”

“ _Please do that for me. I love you. Please do that for me, dear, and wait just a little longer._ ”

“ _Yes, yes, yes, yes, I’ll do it. I’ll do it for you. Anything, anything._ ”

His beloved held him tightly, like fire clenches to the wick, like dew clings to a blade of grass, and it was just enough for now, just enough to live on, and Sherlock stepped them both out of the fire back into the cool of the sorting room.

John gasped for breath and held onto Sherlock with all he had, shaking and sobbing though he didn’t know why. Sherlock hugged him close, lips pressed to his forehead, gently hushing him until John’s senses returned like pooling sand.

John pulled away and rubbed at wet eyes with his free hand, sniffling. “What on earth just happened?” he whispered.

Sherlock was still rubbing a hand up and down his back. “Just calming it down a bit for now. You’ll be all right, John.”

John’s tremors subsided, and he let Sherlock guide him back to the bench and sit him down. He still felt a bit dazed and on edge, but it was…manageable, now. Bearable.

Sherlock unfurled the coats he’d hooked over his forearm and smiled. “And we’ve dried everything off, too,” he commented as he placed John’s coat over his legs and put on his own coat. It magically lengthened to his calves and sprouted wolf’s fur trim along the edges.

John placed a hand wonderingly on his blue coat, which felt soft and hot as though it had sprung fresh from a dryer. “Huh,” he remarked.

Sherlock’s hand was warm on his cheek, and John blinked at the realisation that Sherlock was kneeling in front of him. “Don’t worry, John,” he said cheerily, “if I have to run over ten old ladies to get back to you, I shall. I promise.”

A pressure-releasing giggle escaped him, and John closed his eyes and shook his head, smiling. “Please don’t do that. It’s what got us into this mess in the first place.”

“Bit not good?” Sherlock said, light and playful.

“Bit not good, yeah,” John replied, opening his eyes. They looked at each other and chuckled.

Sherlock transferred his hand from John’s cheek to his uninjured shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “I won’t be long.”

“Better not be,” John retorted.

“I won’t take as long as you did, then,” Sherlock replied as he stood up, then threw him a wink and strutted out of the sorting room with the grind of sleigh rungs on wood following behind him.

John sighed, somehow already missing him.

He was pulled from his introspective fog by a deep yet feminine sigh, and he looked to Mummy, whom he’d entirely forgotten was in the room. She was standing off to the side, smiling serenely, her eyes liquid blue with fondness.

Her appearance had transformed to something entirely more regal in the time between him entering the fire and Sherlock leaving with the sleigh. Usually she favoured a sort of ascetic style, dressing in simple pale shades and black, but now it was as though she’d fallen into a lost treasure trove of diamonds. There was a peculiar, bullet-shaped crown of sorts on her head embroidered with crystals and silver thread, with a pearl netting falling across her forehead, and her hair was plaited in one long braid that fell over her shoulder.[38] Her furred, white overcoat reached the floor, and it glittered brightly as light from the fireplace struck the gemmed pattern of snowflakes etched into it.

“You’ve made him a little sweeter,” she said approvingly, her countenance taking on a wistful expression. “He acts more like his father when he’s with you.”

John smiled. “I would’ve liked meeting his dad.”

“He would have liked you as well,” she replied, picking up a handful of presents from the floor and turning to the fire.

John suddenly felt very aware that he was just sitting on his arse. “Can I help?”

“No,” she replied, without any particular inflection. “We’d all prefer you to rest. Don’t make that face; it is childish,” she added, despite the fact she wasn’t looking at him. Then, before she stepped through the fire, she concluded, “What you should do is eat what is brought to you. It will ease everyone’s worries, especially those of your friend there.”

As she disappeared, John turned his head to discover that Chestnut was hovering near the doorway holding a plate of sandwiches. He tried to remember when he last ate and came up with an alarming blank.

“Hello, Chestnut,” he said, dimly aware of Mummy moving in and out of the fireplace in the background as he tried to consume the sandwiches with his eyes.

“John Watson,” she whispered, coming forward and holding the plate out towards him.

John was pretty sure he’d snatched one off the plate as soon as it was in reach because he suddenly had a mouthful of turkey and cheese and lettuce, but he couldn’t remember actually picking up anything. He closed his eyes, chewed, and swallowed with bliss. The sandwich vanished.

When he opened his eyes again to reach for another sandwich, he realised that Chestnut’s ears were drooping a little and her smile suspiciously non-existent. “What’s wrong?” he asked softly.

“You’re injured,” she replied, eyes falling to his sling. “And Master Sherlock had to carry you in.”

He was a little touched to see her so worried about him. “Hey now, I’ll be all right; I’ve recovered from worse, trust me.”

She sniffed and wiped a hand across her eyes. “Really?” she asked, as if she’d never heard of anything worse than a broken bone.

Which, considering where she was, might actually be the case. John wasn’t sure if the elves were immortal, but considering that he’d seen ones of varying ages during his time there, he assumed they weren’t; but tucked away at the North Pole, they presumably would have never experienced war and bullets. Perhaps death, injuries, and the occasional illness were all they knew? In any case, he wasn’t about to broaden her understanding anytime soon.

“Yes, I have,” he answered vaguely. “And I don’t think it’s too bad a break, just from how it feels. I’ll spring back to shape soon enough—especially thanks to these sandwiches,” he added, taking another one from the plate with a smile.

She grinned back at him. “That’s great!”

“It’s about time ya cheered her up,” came a sullen voice, and to his surprise, John found the glasses-wearing tomboy elf lurking near the doorway with a teapot and cups resting on a trolley. “She’s been drivin’ me up the wall all week carryin’ on about ya.”

“Oh, hello,” John said neutrally, struggling to remember her name. _Eld,_ whispered the spirit in his mind, summoning up the image of a candle-flame. “Nice to see you again, Eld.”

Eld just hummed noncommittally and brought them tea, silently sitting at the far end of the bench as Chestnut took a seat in the middle and began chattering about anything and nothing to him. John struggled to keep up with Chestnut’s enthusiasm for conversation, but he found himself glad for the distraction—it kept him from worrying about Sherlock running over old ladies somewhere. They watched Mummy Holmes ducking in and out of the fireplace, and the pile of presents gradually began to dwindle.

After a while, John noticed Chestnut yawning. “You should go to bed, especially since you’ve been up so late,” he advised. He did not miss Eld shooting him a grateful, tired glance.

“But what about you?” Chestnut yawned at him, rubbing her eyes. “What if you need something?”

“I’ve been well taken care of, thank you,” John reassured her, handing over the empty plate and his teacup.

She looked like she was about to protest, but Eld tugged her off the bench by the sleeve and took his dishes for him, dragging Chestnut behind her.

“G’night, John Watson,” Eld said gruffly, with Chestnut echoing her goodbye through a yawn.

“Night,” he called after them, leaning his head back on the headrest and closing his eyes as he listened to the squeaky trolley trundling down the hallway. His ears pricked as he heard their small voices echoing softly.

“Dunno what you see in ‘im,” Eld was saying, though it was clear she was trying to keep her voice down. “He seems pretty dull t’ me.”

“But he’s _cool,_ ” Chestnut insisted, “and compared to the Masters, he’s so _nice._ ” John smiled.

“Marry ‘im, then,” Eld grumbled.

“ _Eld,_ don’t be silly,” Chestnut chided, clearly amused, “he’s Master Sherlock’s sweetheart. Besides, you know _you’re_ my favourite, sugar plum.”

“Nutty as a fruitcake, you are,” Eld retorted.

“Pretty pretty sugar plum, dancing in my heaaad,” Chestnut sang sweetly, the rest of the verses lost as they walked out of his range of hearing.

John raised an eyebrow. Apparently that sort of thing wasn’t exclusive to him and Detective Christmas up here. Perhaps he was overestimating elvish naïveté.

But now he was thinking of Sherlock again, and as he checked the time, he discovered it was evening in London. Mummy had said something about it already being New Year’s Day in the places they needed to go—wouldn’t Sherlock be seen in broad daylight? It was easier to hide a thundercloud-disguised sleigh driven by reindeer in the dead of night, but surely it wouldn’t work by day. What if he’d been caught? What if there was another Drosselmeyer somewhere giving him hell? Oh god, hopefully he _had_ been joking about running over little old ladies again…John knew he should’ve gone with him, he was just sitting on his arse while Sherlock was probably getting shot out of the sky by military somewhere, and—

“You are overthinking the matter, John,” Mrs. Holmes said, taking off her elaborate crown and sitting beside him on the bench.

John blinked, realising that the room was now empty of gifts.

“ _Ded Moroz_ is more public a persona than his Western counterparts; he is traditionally meant to deliver in person, same as my role,” she explained.[39] She gestured to the crown in her lap. “They do not dress me up for no reason, after all. In any case, his appearance is expected in Russia. If he is to have trouble anywhere, it might be in Greece, but that’s about it.”[40]

“But the sleigh—”

“He is capable of caution, I assure you. He also has a talent for talking himself out of situations, should it come to that.” She gave him a sideways glance. “It may be his first time being the Gift-Giver, but he’s not unfamiliar with the routine. You should have more faith in him.”

“I do, I do, it’s just…” He sighed. He didn’t know what it ‘just’ was, but it was making him jittery and anxious. Maybe it was because this was _his_ first time in this whole business and the disaster from Christmas was still fresh on his mind. Maybe it was the somewhat unhinged ghost he was currently possessed by. Maybe it was because he still couldn’t entirely erase the feeling of his heart dropping into his stomach when he saw Sherlock had turned into ice, or the image of a bony finger pointing to his grave.

“You said I’d be too late,” he said, hushed. He breathed in and out, as steady as he could. “That it’d happen three times, I’d be too late, and…”

When he looked to her, he found her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“You came to me in a dream,” he started, rapidly becoming aware of how daft he was about to sound, but then he started again, “You came to me in a dream, and you told me I’d be too late and that ‘it comes in threes.’ You were pointing at his grave, you—” When she gave him an alarmed look, he whispered, “Christ, you really have no idea what I’m talking about.”

She shook her head slowly. “No, John. For all that I may seem, and for all my idiosyncrasies, I’m still only mortal now.”

“Then you can’t…you can’t have appeared on the runways before each of my flights?” he asked cautiously.

She shook her head.

John felt cold with…not quite fear, but it wasn’t comfort either. “Then who—what was I seeing all those times? Why did it look like you?”

Her mouth pressed into a line as she considered. “I could not say for certain,” she murmured, then continued, “but since you have Sherlock’s spirit of the past in you, it might be responsible in a way. Time is simultaneous, so all its personifications are aware of each other on some level since at their core they are just one concept. The spirit of the future may have been trying to help you in some way.”

John kneaded his forehead. He supposed that was feasible, but this was all too complicated, really. “But why did it look like _you?_ ” he asked.

“That is an excellent question,” she replied quietly, and her expression for once looked troubled in a way he hadn’t seen before. John had seen her worried and concerned, and he knew first-hand that she had a knack for expecting future events to a degree, but this was the first time he’d ever seen her with an expression that said ‘I never saw this coming.’ It was unsettling.

“Maybe it means nothing,” John said, trying to break the silence. “It was just a dream, after all. It could be anything.” He sounded unconvincing even to his ears; he didn’t believe the idea, so there was even less reason to believe she would.

She didn’t offer to play along. Instead, she gave him a rehearsed-looking smile and said, “I’ll sit with you until Sherlock comes back. Keep you company.”

In the end, however, they did not talk much at all. John briefly brought up meeting Tam, which brought a spark of amusement to Mummy’s face, and at another point Mummy left to fetch them more tea and came back with muffins and a painkiller that she insisted he take. He took the painkiller gratefully, but he could only nibble at a muffin and sip a bit of tea as they each returned to an unnerved silence. Evening extended to morning, and John realised that he was shaking all over—not from cold, but from what he could only assume was overexertion and exhaustion.

“You should sleep for a while; when Sherlock returns, he’ll wake you again,” Mummy was saying, but he just shook his head. He couldn’t sleep even if he wanted to. His mind was too restless, and he felt like he was running a fever, the pain in his shoulder, hip, and knee persistently throbbing, and he was becoming aware of all his other muscles joining in the chorus of aching. His body felt like one giant boil, tender and hot to the touch.

When at last he heard the familiar clops of Sherlock’s feet racing down the hallway, he let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Sherlock,” he whispered, stumbling to his feet a bit too quickly and wavering.

But then Sherlock was there, holding him up in his arms, solid and warm, and John pressed his face into the fur of his coat collar, damp with melting snowflakes flecked across its coarse hair. Something inside him thawed.

“There we are, John. I told you I’d make it back in record time.”

John tried to think of a witty reply, but he was drawing blanks.

“Hmm, yes, we’d better get you to bed, I think,” Sherlock said, bending down to scoop him up again. John let him without protest. “Happy New Year, Mummy,” he added as he started taking them out of the sorting room.

“Happy New Year,” John vaguely heard Mummy reply behind them. At the moment, he could really only concentrate on how Sherlock smelled like the frozen crisp of the arctic and briny salt.

When he blearily looked at Sherlock’s face, he was surprised to find him chestnut-haired instead of snowy white, with ivy curling up his long, sensuous neck and icicles dangling like gems from a holly crown. He must’ve made some noise of enquiry, because Sherlock looked down at him and raised an eyebrow.

John registered that they had stopped underneath their bedroom doorway, because the mass of mistletoe framing a sort of halo around Sherlock’s head was entirely too convenient to have got there on its own.

“Yes, I should probably take that back now,” Sherlock murmured, bending his head down. John took the hint and raised his neck to meet him halfway.

For the brief moment that their lips met, something crackled and surged, and then John went out like a light, warm and quiet.

 

* * *

 [37] Literally the only original Grimm’s fairy tale that incorporates the “true love’s kiss cures all” trope is “The True Bride” (where the heroine breaks the spell over her prince with a kiss).  “Sleeping Beauty” aka “Briar Rose” features a kiss, but the fated 100 years for her to sleep were already up when it happened, and a kiss was never a condition for lifting the curse.  The trope literally only became popular during the 20th century/Because Disney.

[38] A kokoshnik, a traditional Russian headdress worn by women in northern Russia from around the 16th to 19th centuries, now usually just worn for special festivals and folk ensembles; it’s traditionally part of Snegurochka’s costume.  They tend to emphasize the snowflake motif with her kokoshnik’s design.  This is just one example from the 19th century, since they tend to actually come in a variety of shapes and designs:

Here’s a couple of more Snegurochka-specific ones:

[39] _Ded Moroz_ : Literally translated as “Old Man Frost” (though often translated as “Grandfather Frost”); he’s the usual Gift-Giver for Slavic countries and shows up in person on New Year’s Eve with his granddaughter Snegurochka (“Snow Maiden”) to hand presents out to children and sometimes defeat the Baba Yaga (who tries to steal the presents) while he’s at it.  During the existence of the Soviet Union, activities typically associated with Christmas were shifted to New Year’s in order to remove religious connotations to the holiday; the tradition carries on in modern-day Russia and to varying degrees in some countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union.  Though Sherlock currently carries the title, it’s unclear where his actual great-great-grandfather who originated the title is these days…but that’s supernatural patriarchs for ya, always disappearing to who-knows-where.  ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

[40] In Greece, it’s traditional for Saint Basil (of Caesarea) to bring gifts to children on New Year’s Day, which is his feast day in the Eastern Orthodox Churches.  St. Basil lived during the 4th century CE, and though he was born into a wealthy family, he gave away all his possessions to the poor, the needy, and children in order to live an ascetic life of Christian monasticism, which is likely where the association of him being a gift-giver arises.  Christmas is still celebrated in Greece, and with Western influence, Santa/St. Nick is becoming more popular, but the gift-giving day is still _traditionally_ considered to be New Year’s.

Sherlock’s likely places of travel for New Year’s include the following:

**Dark Green** signifies places I'm For Sure Certain he'll be dropping off at (there's also probably a couple of other countries formerly part of the USSR not on this map that might also do it further to the east).   **Light Green** signifies places where it's not necessarily a universal custom, but is practiced in some areas.  The **Lined Areas** I'm especially uncertain of, where I've come across some sources that say the custom's in practice and others that say it isn't.  In particular, I've found in my researching that Turkey, being a predominantly Muslim country, doesn't seem to encourage the custom, but some families (probably Eastern Orthodox adherents, I'm guessing) might practice it on the sly.  And though Russia is in Dark Green, to be honest I'm not sure how widespread the custom is throughout _all of_ Russia, considering that it is home to _hundreds_ of different ethnic groups; I don't have enough knowledge of how the Soviet Union operated to know how much influence the Soviet government had in smaller communities outside of major cities further out east.  But I'm pretty certain that at least in Western Russia the custom is pretty common, so there's that.  :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A/N** : Congratulations, we've made it to the end of the penultimate section! :D Thank you all for sticking with me on this twisty, windy adventure so far. We just have one more final section to go before The Grand Finale, and I'll ask for the same courtesy that the vast majority of you have graciously continued to respect these past few years: basically, don't send me demanding questions about when the next section will happen (fyi, including "please" doesn't stop the question from being demanding; intent means more to me than how it's phrased), because on top of annoying me to the point where I'll deliberately put off doing it out of spite, it also tends to severely discourage my writing spirit, which is...not helpful, to either you or me. Excitement and encouragement are very much welcome, impatience is not. But I can assure you, this fic will get done one way or another - I've put far too much effort and time into it to _not_ finish it, and I love this fic with all my heart. When the final posting schedule will be, I think I've learned by now (finally) not to give too solid an answer, because I can't predict what real world obstacles will be thrown at me to slow me up (like there were these past couple of years), but I think it should definitely be before next Christmas at the latest (I'm very much hoping for sooner though, if I can swing it!). You can always follow or check in on my tumblr (same name as here) for writing progress updates though, if you can stomach all the other nonsense I post on there. :P Thank you all again for your patience and enthusiasm, and I very much hope you've enjoyed reading _You and Sugar Plums!_

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [For the Hardest Workers of All](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11780808) by [HM (HyperMint)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyperMint/pseuds/HM)




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